Berlin Group Research Articles

Nag Hammadi Deutsch, 1. Band: NHC I,1-V,1: Eingeleitet und ubersetzt von Mitgliedern des Berliner Arbeitskreises fur Koptisch-Gnostische Schriften

Nag Hammadi Deutsch, 1. Band: NHC I1,-V,1: Eingeleitet and iibersetzt von Mitgliedern des Berliner Arbeitskreises fur Koptisch-Gnostische Schriften, ed. Hans-Martin Schenke, Hans-Gebhard Bethge, and Ursula Ulrike Kaiser. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2001. Pp. xxi + 397. C98,00. This impressive volume, containing a German translation of the first half of the Nag Hammadi Codices with introductions and notes, is the best one-volume treatment that has yet appeared in any language, a striking instance of the tenacity of the German scholarly tradition through thick and thin. Berlin has, for over a century, been the leading center of scholarship in the fields of Gnosticism and Coptology. Technically speaking, the present volume is a continuation, within the overarching series Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten (drei) Jahrhunderte (1897-), of the subseries Koptisch-Gnostische Schriften, whose first volume, containing the Askew and Bruce Codices, was edited by Carl Schmidt in 1905. It was published in Leipzig under the auspices of the KirchenvaterKommission of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences. The most recent fourth edition appeared in 1981 under the auspices of the Kommission fur spatantike Religionsgeschichte of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin. The reunification of Germany in 1989-90 has led to still another reorganization: The present second volume of the subseries Koptisch-Gnostische Schriften is number 8 of a Neue Folge of the whole series, sponsored by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences in agreement with the Patristic Commissions of seven German Academies of Sciences. Forthcoming soon will be the other half of the Nag Hammadi Codices, as volume 2 of Nag Hammadi Deutsch, volume 3 of Koptisch-Gnostische Schriften. The series is now no longer published by the Akademie-Verlag in Berlin, but rather by Walter de Gruyter of Berlin and New York. The Berliner Arbeitskreis fur koptisch-gnostische Schriften was organized on an informal basis in East Berlin by Hans-Martin Schenke together with his students. Beginning already in 1958-59, translations by Johannes Leipoldt and Schenke of all of Codex II that was available at the time appeared in the Theologische Literaturzeitung. These were followed, on the basis of transcriptions I supplied, by Schenke's working circle in 1973-78, followed by a series of dissertations. The plan to publish their translations as volumes 2 and 3 of Koptisch-Gnostische Schriften was announced by Schenke at the founding meeting of the International Association for Coptic Studies in Cairo in 1976. So the present volume has been under way for more than a quarter of a century. The work of the Berlin group, initially aided by the sharing of material from the UNESCO photographs of the Nag Hammadi codices that I secured and transmitted to Berlin in draft transcription and translation (prepared by the English-language team I organized), has in more recent years been aided by the French-language Nag Hammadi project at the University of Laval, in Quebec, Canada: La Bibliotheque copte de Nag Hammadi. This was launched on the basis of the same draft transcriptions and translations, but has gone well beyond them, with fresh collations on the basis of the originals in Cairo, to produce critical editions of each tractate with commentaries. Not only has Schenke himself been a visiting scholar at Laval, but also the leading Coptologist of the Berlin group, Wolf Peter Funk, has joined permanently the Laval team, where he has provided a major resource for the French edition. As a by-product of the main Laval project, he has organized a Concordance des textes de Nag Hammadi, which is a series of massive volumes containing computerbased analytic concordances of each codex. Since the Coptic spelling in Nag Hammadi texts was not yet standardized when the texts were originally translated from Greek into Coptic and then copied and recopied in Coptic, the root of a given word in a tractate, and hence its meaning, was at times ambivalent. …

Invited commentary

Invited commentary

Developmental biology of amphibians after Hans Spemann in Germany.

After the Hans Spemann and Hilde Mangold discovery of the importance of the dorsal blastopore lip for axis formation in the early embryo (Nobelprize for Spemann, 1935), the scientific community tried in a goldrush-like manner to find the inducing factors responsible for the programming of early embyronic determination and differentiation. The slow progress towards a solution of this problem caused a fading of interest on behalf of most laboratories. This article describes the activities of a few laboratories in Finland, Japan and Germany, which continued their studies despite tremendous experimental difficulties. Finally only Heinz Tiedemann's group in Berlin was the first which could isolate a mesoderm/endoderm inducing factor in highly purified form, the so-called vegetalizing factor, now known as activin. Furthermore this article describes the identification of neuralizing factors like Chordin, Cerberus and Dickkopf in the zone of the Spemann-Mangold organizer. The finding that BMP-4 acts as an antagonist to these factors located on the dorsal side led to a new understanding of the mechanisms of action of inducing (neuralizing) factors and early embryonic pattern formation. Moreover, the observations that closely related genes and their products were also found in Drosophila, Zebrafish, Mice and Human were the basis for new concepts of evolutionary mechanisms (dorsal/ventral and anterior/posterior polarity or conserved processes in eye-development of all 7 animal phyla).

Telepathology: a diagnostic tool for the millennium?

Many developments in science have their origins in science fiction and telepathology is no exception. The concept was first illustrated in 1924 in the magazine 'Radio News'. It was not until 1980, however, that the first working telepathology system was demonstrated. Although the system was shown to work, it required special hardware, dedicated software and special microwave transmission links to be installed. Little interest was shown worldwide because of the very high cost and the inability of many people to replicate such a system. Ten years later, the personal computer (PC) was able to provide more than adequate performance at low cost for both image display quality and speed, and the development of video technology had resulted in high quality images being produced by television cameras that were now easily affordable. Microscopes were also relatively cheaper. Thus, by 1993 or 1994, all the hardware necessary to produce a telepathology system was available at reasonable cost. Telepathology can now be used for remote primary diagnosis, remote referral to a specialist pathologist, remote teaching, remote presentation of post-mortem or microscopic findings, quality assurance image circulation and feedback, and consensus diagnosis for pathological review in clinical trials. There are two residual problems. The first concerns the speed of data transmission, commonly referred to as the bandwidth. The second is that the software provided by most of the manufacturers and suppliers of these systems is not entirely suitable to the task and the systems are not interoperable. It is clear that the approach of the manufacturers is at present unlikely to produce telepathology systems which pathologists feel comfortable in using. A somewhat different approach is illustrated by the accompanying article in this issue from the Berlin group, where a relatively simple Java-based applet and the Internet are used to allow single or multiple users to view slides on a robotic microscope. This could form the basis for a truly useful system, but still needs modification for some applications.

The Fifth Gospel: The Gospel of Thomas Comes of Age

The Fifth Gospel: The Gospel of Thomas Comes of Age, by Stephen J. Patterson and James M. Robinson, with a New English Translation by Hans-Gebhard Bethge et al. Berliner Arbeitskreis fur koptische-gnostische Schriften. Harrisburg, PA; Trinity Press International, 1998. Pp.119. N.P. I hardly thought there was need for a new translation of the Gospel of Thomas until I read this one. The Gospel of Thomas was one of the first treatises of the Nag Hammadi Library to be published in translation, and several good translations already exist (by Robert McL. Wilson, Marvin Meyer, and the standard critical translation by Thomas O. Lambdin, among others). But this translation by the Berlin Working Group for Coptic Gnostic Writings (Berliner Arbeitskreis fur koptische-gnostische Schriften) under the leadership first of Hans-Martin Schenke and now of Hans-Gebhard Bethge, advances the grace and ease of translation more than any previous one. This English translation was prepared by the Berlin Working Group for inclusion in Kurt Aland's Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum (15th ed.) and is here presented in a further revised form. The translation tends toward demystifying the and rendering them in a more accessible wisdom language. Take, for example, the Introduction and the first saying, which are combined in the translation: These are the words that the living Jesus spoke. And Didymos Judas Thomas wrote them down. And he said: `Whoever finds the meaning of these words will not taste death.' Compared to Lambdin's translation (Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. James M. Robinson), the secret sayings have become simply hidden words, while the interpretation of these sayings has become more straightforwardly to the meaning of these words. Effectively this translation strategy aligns these of Jesus with the larger corpus of gnomic literature as opposed to the more mystifying language that aligns them with the opaque language of Gnosticism. This translation strategy is evident in other as wellsayings 2 (be dismayed as opposed to being troubled) and 8 (sensible fisherman as opposed to wise) among many others. This translation also distinguishes itself by clarifying some of the more obscure and difficult readings of the Gospel of Thomas. Although scholars may disagree with certain readings, the general public will find them accessible. Two examples will illustrate this. First, Gos. Thorn. 27 renders the literal If you do not fast against the world of the Coptic as If you do not abstain from the world, you will not find the kingdom. The Berlin Group's translation goes directly to the meaning of the language rather than reproducing the Coptic literally into English. The second example is Gos. Thorn. 49, where the Coptic has been read more simply. The Berlin Group renders the saying as Blessed are the solitary ones, the elect. For you will find the kingdom. Lambdin's translationBlessed are the solitary and elect-implies that there are two groups, not one, that are blessed. …

Investigation of line profiles in the ν 2 band of H 2S

Experiments with a three-channel lead salt diode laser spectrometer concerning collisional effects for lines from the ν 2 band of H 2S were carried out in the laser spectroscopy group in Berlin. An improved experimental set-up in comparison to the system as described in Sumpf et al. (J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transfer 59 (1998) 99), e.g. liquid nitrogen cooling system, improved laser stability, multipass cells in both channels, allows us now to detect the Dicke narrowing effect. To analyze the measured line profiles three types of contours, i.e. Voigt. Rautian-Sobel’man, and Galatry, were taken into account. As result of this study Dicke narrowing was clearly observed for several lines. The most significant narrowing coefficient (31±4) · 10 cm −1 atm −1 was found for the line 12 1.12←11 0.11 perturbed by Neon. Nevertheless, it was shown that for the lines under study the pressure broadening and shift coefficient’s deviation due to not taking into account Dicke narrowing, lies in the range of the uncertainties of the determination of the coefficients.

How do patients with HIV perceive their general practitioners?

To study the perceptions of patients with HIV of their general practitioners in terms of knowledge, abilities, confidence, and satisfaction. Questionnaire survey of inpatients, outpatients, and members of a self help group. Two city hospitals, three outpatient clinics, and one AIDS self help group in Munich and Berlin, Germany. All 402 patients available between 1 September 1988 and 31 May 1989. General practitioners' attitudes towards the patients' HIV status; patients' experience of treatment rejection; reception in the general practitioner's office; the doctor's perceived knowledge about HIV and AIDS. 394 of 402 patients consented to interview; 87% were registered with a general practitioner and 91% of those indicated that the doctor was aware of their HIV diagnosis. The overwhelming majority of patients (94%) had a friendly or at least neutral reception in the general practitioner's surgery and only six patients' general practitioner changed his or her behaviour for the worse because of the HIV diagnosis. Two thirds of patients said they would consult first with their primary care doctor for a physical problem, but only 13% would do so for psychological problems. Over a third of the patients did not routinely inform other doctors or medical staff about their HIV status, but there was no significant correlation between this concealment and ever having been rejected by a doctor (7%) or a dentist (12%). Most patients expressed a high degree of satisfaction with their general practitioners in terms of confidential issues, attitudes, knowledge, and management.

Belated recognition: Lise Meitner's role in the discovery of fission

Although physicist LiseMeitner is known for the first theoretical explanation of nuclear fission, the discovery itself is generally attributed only to her co-workers OttoHahn and FritzStrassmann. In fact, however,Meitner was essential to the discovery at every phase: she brought the uranium investigation to Berlin, led the Berlin group for four years, and, even after fleeing Germany, provided the critical direction which culminated in the identification of barium in December 1938. Recognition of LiseMeitner's contributions remedies a significant historical omission, and places the discovery itself in its proper scientific context.

Thinking about Science: Max Delbrück and the Origins of Molecular Biology By Ernst Peter Fischer and Carol Lipson (review)

BOOK REVIEW Thinking about Science: Max Delbrück and the Origins ofMolecular Biology. By Ernst Peter Fischer and Carol Lipson. New York: W. W. Norton, 1988. Pp. 334. $19.95. Max Delbrück was one of the most dominant figures in the early history of molecular biology. Does he owe this stature to his extraordinary influence and/or to the merit of his direct contributions to that science? His early "quantummechanical model of the gene," though incorrect, drew Salvador Luria and Günther Stent, among many others, into genetics. By introducing and enforcing the so-called phage treaty in 1944, he forced phage researchers to concentrate on seven phage types, thus permitting easy comparison and interpretation of results from different laboratories. His skepticism about the "one gene-one enzyme" hypothesis motivated Norman Horowitz to perform an experiment using temperature-sensitive mutants that, besides providing very important corroborative evidence for that hypothesis, established one of the most important techniques ofbiochemical genetics. In 1950 Delbrück sent Renato Dulbecco on a tour of virology laboratories around the country that led to the Iatter's development of the first quantitative techniques for the study of animal viruses. This list has picked only some of the most salient examples of Delbrücks influence. However, there does not seem to be associated with Delbrück any definite result of such overwhelming importance as the DNA double helix model, the cistronic definition of the gene, or the decipherment of the genetic code. Even in the study of phage, the most significant result, the demonstration that the genetic material is only DNA, is due to Hershey and Chase rather than Delbrück. All the same, it is hard to see how the reverence in which Delbrück was held during his life or the accolades he received, including the Nobel Prize in 1969, could have arisenjust because of his influence. Further, the standard histories of this period do not do much to illuminate the matter. Thus the question has remained, Why was Delbrück so important? This book, written by a former graduate student of Delbrück's, Fischer, and a professional writer, Lipson, does much to answer this question. As a semipopular scientific and personal biography of Delbrück, it both describes and puts into Permission to reprint a book review printed in this section may be obtained only from the author. 612 I Book Review perspective his actual scientific achievements. It also argues for a specific thesis, that Delbrück's biological career was motivated by a search for complementarity that would delimit the possibility of physical explanation of biological phenomena , an idea that was originally proposed by Niels Bohr and subsequently adopted by Delbrück. To the extent that the book is intended for a popular audience with no prior scientific background, it is likely to be a failure. The detail with which it treats scientific issues will probably make it inaccessible to such an audience. However, it is precisely this detail that permits a reliable critical appraisal of Delbrück's work and makes this volume particularly valuable. The book begins by recounting Delbrück's family background (he came from one of Germany's best-known academic families), his childhood experiences, his early interest in astronomy, his unsuccessful attempt to write a thesis in it, and his years at Göttingen, where he wrote a thesis under Max Born on the lithium "molecule." This early research took place against the cultural background of Weimar Germany, and while its political turmoil took its inevitable toll even on somebody as completely apolitical as Delbrück, its artistic achievements do not seem to have had any effect on him. Then came a fellowship at Bristol University , with J. E. Lennard-Jones, where he was supposed to bring the new quantum mechanics that had been developed in Germany. Following this, a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship took him to Copenhagen in 1931, where the influence of Niels Bohr probably first drew his attention to biology. However, from 1933 to 1937 he worked as a theoretical physicist in Lise Meitner's group in Berlin, interpreting Meitner's and Otto Hahn's nuclear experiments. His performance at Meitner's laboratory...

Unfinished Democracy: Women in Nordic Politics.

This excellent book left me with ambivalent feelings. The women in the Nordic countries have progressed beyond their North American sisters in numerous aspects, but continue to suffer from much of the same discrimination and oppression. The early Canadian feminists believed gaining the rights to vote and to hold elected office would have far-reaching social benefits for women. Many of their expectations went unfulfilled. in the Nordic countries feel disappointment as well. Nonetheless, they have achieved much that we can envy and attempt to emulate. This valuable book is a collaboration by twenty Nordic women scholars studying political problems and issues involving women. It grew out of the Women in Politics working group in Berlin, in 1977. The eight well-researched chapters address such issues as women in organizations, elections, parliament and the corporate systems, as they vary from country to country. In addition they contemplate the questions of equality and the position of women in today's Nordic societies. They reach a sobering conclusion:

Hemoglobin in mammalian oxygen transport: ingenious formulations not quite in accord with nature.

PERSPECTIVES IN BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE Volume 28 · Number 2 ¦ Winter 1985 HEMOGLOBIN IN MAMMAUAN OXYGEN TRANSPORT: INGENIOUS FORMULATIONS NOT QUITE IN ACCORD WITH NATURE MARK D. ALTSCHULE* Introduction SamuelJohnson once remarked that time alone can establish the value of works that are not "raised upon principles demonstrable and scientifick" but owe their appeal "wholly to observation and experience." This comment offers an explanation for the haste with which many medical professors and some biologists for centuries have tried to validate observations made in nature by recourse to whatever scientific notions were current. In the seventeenth century, these notions were iatromathematics and iatrochemistry; in the nineteenth century, they were fragmentary physics of the reductionist Berlin group; and in the twentieth century, they may be some aspects of molecular biology. (Galen's humoral system and the derived pseudochemistry of Paracelsus are too blatantly nonsensical to require discussion here.)Johnson's dichotomous dictum may not be applicable to the life sciences because the "principles demonstrable and scientifick" themselves were developed in the laboratory on the basis of "observation and experience" in Nature. These considerations raise several questions. One is: At what point in their accumulation do observations of Nature need to be validated by laboratory science? Can observations of Nature be accepted as convincing even though totally unexplainable by current scientific concepts, ?Francis A. Countway Library ofMedicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 021 15.© 1985 by The University of Chicago. AU rights reserved. 003 1-5982/85/2802-042 1$0 1 .00 Perspectives in Biology andMediane, 28, 2 · Winter 1985 | 175 either true or false? These and related questions arise and may be answered by a history of the ideas about oxygen, beginning centuries before oxygen was even discovered. The ancients were convinced that the ambient atmosphere contained a Vivifying Principle, or several of them. In some early systems of thought this Vivifying Principle was believed to be divine: the Divine Breath or Spirit, the Logos, the World Mind, the World Soul, etc. (Today 's psychoanalysts do not recognize the connection of their Collective Unconscious to this primitive hypothetical entity.) The ancients believed that, when Man breathed in air, he inhaled with it some of the Divine Spirit. He might breathe some ofit out upon a loved one, as in the sniffkiss of primitive people, or more specifically in acts such ás described in John 20:22: "He [Jesus] breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive the Holy Ghost." To this day, Egyptian Catholic (Coptic) priests, after baptizing infants, confirm them by breathing in their faces, saying "Receive the Holy Ghost." Similarly, during the ordination of a Coptic bishop, the other bishops present breathe in the prelate's face. Religious and philosophical ideas about the divine aspects of ambient air held during the past 2,000 years have been discussed elsewhere [I]. The widely accepted system of ideas about the creative atmospheric principle involved not Only theology and philosophy but other aspects of thoughtas well. For example, the atomist Democritus opined that the air we inhaled contained only particles of the Divinely Vivifying Principle, suggesting that it had other components as well. Other thinkers maintained that only a portion of the ambient air—an exquisitely refined component called aether—acted as this Principle. Here then was a system of ideas based neither on "principles demonstrable and scientifick" nor on "observation and experience." Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the system stood unshakable for centuries. Biological concepts were also brought forward from earliest times. It will be recalled that Aristotle, in his Parts ofAnimals, wrote "Some maintain that the Soul of an animal is Fire or some such substance. This is a crude way of putting it; and might be improved upon by saying that the Soul subsists in some body of a fiery nature. The reason for this is that the hot substance is the most serviceable of all for the activities of the soul." It is important to note that early ideas about the Vivifying Principle brought in analogies between combustion and respiration, and these views persisted for centuries. The seventeenth century saw a great increase in writing about respiration . One of the authorities, Richard Lower, made a most...

4‐Hydroxybutyric aciduria: A new inborn error of metabolism. II. Biochemical findings

The urinary excretion of 4- or γ-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) was first reported by Jakobs et al. (1981) in a child with neurological abnormalities (B.S., male, born 1977 of related Turkish parents). In an addendum to their paper this West Berlin group reported the discovery of siblings (F.R., female, born 1970, and M.R., male, born 1972, from non-related Lebanese parents) with metabolic profiles identical to that of their first case. Another patient with γ-hydroxybutyric aciduria (B.R., male, born 1975 of related Algerian parents) was recently described by Divry et al. (1983) from Lyon. The purpose of this communication is to review the biochemical findings in these four patients.

Hegelianism. The Path towards Dialectical Humanism, 1805-1841 (review)

9'52 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY judgments of color are false because they involve projections? Fifth, Mackie's emendations on the artificial virtues are unnecessary because they already are in Hume. Mackie missed them because he never really grasped the theory of sympathy in Hume. Sixth, if Mackie had fully understood the sympathy process he would have seen the confluence of sentiment, judgment, social context, and the influence upon action. Rather than Hume having slurred the distinction between judgment and sentiment, he offered the first serious distinction and analysis of the distiction. Seventh , Mackie missed all of this because he seems to have read only the commentaries of Harrison and Mercer. A better knowledge of the secondary literature would not only have avoided the pitfalls but have made him realize that the objectification theory is well known among American readers of Hume. Finally, I note that Hume never forgot that morality cannot be understood just as a system of beliefs but has a fi)undation firmly rooted in action and practice. NICHOLAS CAPALDI Queens College John E. Toews. Hegelianism. The Path towardsDialecticalHumanism, x8o5-z84~. New York: Cambridge University Press, 198o. Pp. 45~. $39.5 ~ Few works by historians are also of great value to philosophers. John E. Toews's presentation of the development of the Hegelian movement and of its emancipatory, dialectical driving-fi)rces is one such exception and, in fact, a most valuable one. Aw)iding the limited scope of the "From Hegel to Marx" theme which has been widely focused on, Toews understands the "Hegelian Project" as a special method which aids contemporary man in his striving for self-understanding and self-emancipation and which enables the construction of cultural and political bodies within which modern man can feel "at home." In confronting the post-revolutionary crisis of orientation and also intellectual and political discontent with the so-called "juste milieu," we should not regard Hegel's options, nor those of Marx and of other Hegelians, merely as steps within a unilinear process of growing radicalism. Rather, these various options are to be seen as related to differences in .judging and evaluating the variables and invariables contained in the given intellectual and political environment. They are alternatives, not sequentially emerging options. In his first section (pp. 1-67), Toews outlines the main structure of Hegel's mature position as expressed in PhilosophyofRight, which proposes a programmatical, i.e. dialectical, mediation between theory and practice, and rejects the extreme positions of the French Revolution and of German Romanticism. The book's second part narrates the story of the formulation of theories through the closed process of group communication within the Hegelian School. Toews also described the Hegelians' political, religious and epistemological battles, and, finally, the emergence of the new positions held by Right, Center, and Left Hegelianism. Divisions within the movement and the ultimate forms of options propounded by Strauss (pp. 255-287), BOOK REVIEWS 253 Bauer (pp. 288-326 ), and Feuerbach (pp. 327-355) are discussed in the third section (pp. 203-369). In Hegelianism, Toews achieves the most extensive account so far of the group process through which Hegelian theory was produced between 1821 and 1841. He also shows how the different options offered by the intellectuals participating in this process, including both Hegel and Marx, evolved in reaction to the same or similar problems. Toews stresses the decisive influence of Brunt) Bauer in shaping the concept of" dialectics towards requiring radicalism in self-emancipation and in political affairs throughout the entire process of theory-formulation. But in resolving the final dilemma of Hegelians--whether to mediate, or to choose, between self-liberation and the liberation of the world, i.e. the subordination of the self in serving certain values--the ego and ideas of Max Stirner also play an important, if unhappy role. More attention could have been given by Toews to the Stirnerian option, which for a time appeared tempting to Bruno Bauer and even more so to Marx, and to its consequences. Such an emphasis would have more convincingly demonstrated that the intimate group process of formulating theory practised by the Berlin group, which included Bruno Bauer, Edgar Bauer, Friedrich Engels, Karl Koeppen, Karl...

Robert Neumann: a pioneer in periodontal flap surgery.

The contributions of Robert Neumann to the development of periodontal flap surgery are acknowledged. Neumann, born in 1882 was the leader of the Berlin group of dentists who advocated "the radical surgical treatment of pyorrhea". This approach was widely reported in European journals and sometimes referred to as the "Neumann operation". A biographical sketch and detailed descriptions of his operative procedures are included. Some of the historical background surrounding the priority question in the development of flap surgery is outlined.

THE BERLIN-WEST ALL STUDY AFTER 7 YEARS AND ITS 3 YEARS' CONTROL IN MUNSTER/WESTFALEN AND FRANKFURT/MAIN

In sequence 141 children and adolescents with previously untreated ALL (78 males, 53 females, 1 month to 16 years, median age 5 10/12 years) entered this cooperative study between Oct. 70 and Sept. 76. All patients (Berlin group 73, Munster/Frankfurt group 68 pts.) were treated according to the Berlin-West induction protocol (Riehm et al., Klin. Pad., 189: 89 (1977)). Maintenance therapy was applied in two modifications (Berlin: cyclic sequential application, Oct. 70 - May 76; Munster/Frankfurt: combined application, Oct. 74 - Sept. 76). 134/141 pts. achieved complete remission (CR), 7 were non-responders or died within 4 weeks. Death in CR occurred 8/134 pts., all within 4 months after diagnosis. As to July 1st, 77, 92/126 pts. are in continuous complete remission (CCR) between 9 mths. and 6 9/12 yrs. The cumulative index for 7 yrs. CCR calculated by the life table method is 0.59 with as yet no difference between the two groups with different maintenance therapy. 34/126 pts. (27%) relapsed between 4 and 59 mths. after diagnosis (19x bone marrow, 10x CNS, 3x bone marrow/CNS, 2xtestis). In pts. with WBC at diagnosis 25 G/l 0.41 (26/49 pts. in CCR). 104/141 pts. survive (74%), the cumulative index for survival after 7 yrs. is 0.67. For comparison, the 3 yrs. cumulative indices for CCR (126 pts.) and, survival (141 pts.) are 0.69 and 0.74 (Berlin) and 0.76 and 0.71 (Munster/Frankfurt).

Field Theory as Human Science: Contributions of Lewin's Berlin Group

Field Theory as Human Science: Contributions of Lewin's Berlin Group