medicine
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Ascus (bethesda System)
The Bethesda system (TBS), officially called The Bethesda System for Reporting Cervical Cytology, is a system for reporting cervical or vaginal cytologic diagnoses,[1] used for reporting Pap smear results. It was introduced in 1988[2] and revised in 1991,[3] 2001,[1][4][5] and 2014.[6] The name comes from the location (Bethesda, Maryland) of the conference, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, that established the system. Since 2010, there is also a…
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ASCUS (Formerly Theca)
This article is about the spore-bearing cell in fungi. For Atypical Squamous Cells of Undetermined Significance (ASCUS), see Bethesda system. For the Greek mythological giant, see Ascus (mythology). (pl. asci) a cell present in the fruiting body of ASCOMYCETE fungi in which the fusion of HAPLOID nuclei occurs during sexual reproduction. This is normally followed by MEIOSIS, giving rise to four haploid cells, after which MITOSIS produces eight ASCOSPORES. The precise arrangement of ascospores within the ascus enables the events at meiosis to be fully analysed (see TETRAD ANALYSIS). The asci are usually enclosed within an aggregation of hyphae termed an ASCOCARP, a number of different types being recognized, e.g. perithecium, cleistothecium, apothecium. (Collins Dictionary of Biology, 3rd ed. © W. G. Hale, V. A. Saunders, J. P. Margham 2005) An ascus (from Ancient Greek ἀσκός (askós) ‘skin bag, wineskin’; pl.: asci)[1] is the sexual spore-bearing cell produced in ascomycete fungi. Each ascus usually contains eight ascospores (or octad), produced by meiosis followed, in most species, by a mitotic cell division. However, asci in some genera…
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Thecal Sac or Dural Sac
The thecal sac or dural sac is the membranous sheath (theca) or tube of dura mater that surrounds the spinal cord and the cauda equina. The thecal sac contains the cerebrospinal fluid which provides nutrients and buoyancy to the spinal cord.[1] From the skull the tube adheres to bone at the foramen magnum and extends down to the second sacral vertebra where it tapers to cover over the filum terminale. Along most of the spinal canal it is separated…
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Buccal Administration of Insulin
Nanotechnology as a Promising Strategy for Alternative Routes of Insulin Delivery Catarina Pinto Reis, Christiane Damgé, in Methods in Enzymology, 2012 Chapter fourteen The buccal mucosa has excellent accessibility, low enzymatic activity, a large absorptive area with a spread of vascularization, and a relatively immobile mucosa which may be an important factor for increasing the residence time of the drugs. In…
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A History of Hepatitis B Vaccine
Preliminary work In 1963, the American physician/geneticist Baruch Blumberg, working at the Fox Chase Cancer Center, discovered what he called the “Australia Antigen” (HBsAg) in the serum of an Australian Aboriginal person. In 1968, this protein was found to be part of the virus that causes “serum hepatitis” (hepatitis B) by virologist Alfred Prince. In 1976, Blumberg won the Nobel Prize in…
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Eraso Y. Biotypology, Endocrinology, and Sterilization: The Practice of Eugenics in the Treatment of Argentinian Women During the 1930s. Bull Hist Med. 2007 Winter;81(4):793-822. doi: 10.1353/bhm.2007.0130. PMID: 18084107; PMCID: PMC2629848.
SUMMARYThis article looks at medical approaches to women’s fertility in Argentina in the 1930s and explores the ways in which eugenics encouraged the reproduction of the fit and attempted to avoid the reproduction of the unfit. The analysis concentrates on three main aspects: biotypology (the scientific classification of bodies), endocrine therapy, and sterilization. The article…
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The Hormone Hustle
We’re about to embark on a time-traveling, mind-bending journey through the evolution of normalization, biopolitics, and the wild world of hormones. From Foucault’s philosophical bombshells to Nicola Pende’s hormone-fueled science experiments, this is a story that will leave you questioning everything you thought you knew about “normal.” Act I: The Birth of Biopower (18th Century) Picture…
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Beccalossi C. Sexology, sexual development, and hormone treatments in Southern Europe and Latin America, c.1920-40. Hist Human Sci. 2023 Dec;36(5):94-121. doi: 10.1177/09526951231213028. Epub 2023 Dec 6. PMID: 38077463; PMCID: PMC10700059.
AbstractDisplacing the physiological model that had held sway in 19th-century medical thinking, early 20th-century medical scientists working on hormones promoted a new understanding of the body, psychological reactions, and the sexual instinct, arguing that each were fundamentally malleable. Hormones came to be understood as the chemical messengers that regulated an individual’s growth and sexual development,…
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Beccalossi C. Italian sexology, Nicola Pende’s biotypology and hormone treatments in the 1920s. Hist Med Sante. 2017 Winter;12:73-97. doi: 10.4000/hms.1173. Epub 2018 May 28. PMID: 31501760; PMCID: PMC6733708.
AbstractThis article analyses a selection of Nicola Pende’s studies from the 1920s on ‘endocrinological abnormalities’ associated with impotence, a lack of virility in men, a lack of femininity in women, and homosexuality. By analysing endocrinological sexual theories and treatments, it aims to illustrate the ways in which hormone research pioneered an innovative approach to the…
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BECCALOSSI C. Optimizing and normalizing the population through hormone therapies in Italian science, c.1926–1950. The British Journal for the History of Science. 2020;53(1):67-88. doi:10.1017/S0007087419000906
Abstract This essay explores how hormone treatments were used to optimize and normalize individuals under Italian Fascism. It does so by taking the activities of the Biotypological Orthogenetic Institute − an Italian eugenics and endocrinological centre founded by Nicola Pende in 1926 − as the prime example of a version of eugenics, biotypology, which was…
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