Birth Of Man Research Articles

Ontogeny of amino acid transport sites in kidney

Urinary hyperexcretion of proline, hydroxyproline and glycine is a defined component of the transient impairment in tubular absorption of amino acids after birth in man and rat. In both species, loss of iminoaciduria precedes reduction of hyper-glycinuria. This coincides with in vitro evidence in rat for phased “activation” of substrate-specific membrane carriers, the one for proline appearing early, that for glycine, late. “Activation” apparently involves appearance of new carrier proteins rather than gain in energy coupling to existing carriers, since studies of amino acid interaction during influx, heteroexchange and inhibition of energy metabolism indicate a specific initial lack of relevant carriers. However “maturation” of total amino acid transport in kidney also involves another component. By comparing Vmax for uptake in vitro of proline, glycine and α-amino isobutyric acid on carriers present from birth, we found their relative capacities to increase synchronously after birth. This is compatible either with increasing membrane area or with more efficient coupling of energy to transport. Thus changes both in specific activity of carriers and in total membrane activity characterize ontogeny of amino acid transport in kidney.

Season of Birth in Man. Contemporary Situation with Special Reference to Europe and the Southern Hemisphere

The season of birth in man appears to be meteorologically controlled thought minor minima of cultural origin are also apparent. The change of conception may be temperature dependent. The periodicity in the Southern Hemisphere is the reverse of that of the northern one. The Moslem Mediterranean region exhibits patters similar to southern Europe, as does Central America. The United States, Canada and Puerto Rico have a pattern that appears to be anomalous compared to the rest of the world. The seasonality of birth is a sensitive indicator of certain cultural and biological phenomena. The amplitude is increased by illegitimacy, death, belonging to a race other than Caucasian, war, depression, lack of industrialization, poverty of rural living. There is some indication, over time, that the mere process of urbanization and industrialization can cause the amplitude to behave in an erratic fashion. An hypothesis has been suggested to explain changes that have occurred during the past century. It is thought that the effect of urbanization is responsible for the change and in part the improvement of the standard of living has also be an influence. Spain and Sweden have shown no major variation in their season of birth for the period of time for which there are data.

The Season of Birth in Man

The Season of Birth in Man

Hadrian and Italica

Italica in the province of Baetica is the ‘patria’ of the Aelii. Hadrian duly bears the tribe of that municipium, the ‘Sergia’. However, the place of a man's birth is not always the same as the legal ‘origo’ of his family. A child may see the light of day somewhere else, according to the rank and occupation of his parent. The consular historian, probably Narbonensian by his ‘patria’, might have been born at Augusta Treverorum or Colonia Claudia: a Cornelius Tacitus is on record as imperial procurator in Belgica and the Germanies. Or, for that matter, Claudius Caesar. That infant was born at Lugdunum, a Roman colonia. Seneca, by a double denigration, labels him a ‘Gallus germanus’.

Experiences with more than one thousand elderly surgical patients.

The results of major surgery have improved enormously in the past 20 years. Not only is surgery now safe for the patient but we are learning something of how to make the patient safe for surgery. As a result, major operations can be carried out at ages, both young and old, which were previously thought to be an absolute barrier. At the same time, with the increased expectation of life common to all civilized countries, the surgery of the elderly patient is becoming increasingly important. In Great Britain, life expectancy at birth for men has increased from 48.5 years in 1900 to 66.3 years in 1950. At the age of 60, life expectancy is 74.8; at 70, it is 79. Moreover, between 1931 and 1951, while the total population of the country increased by 8%, the number of persons more than 70 years of age increased by 72%. Trends in

ABO blood groups and sex-ratio at birth in man.

SEX-RATIO at birth in man and some other organisms has been a subject of investigation for several decades. No clear evidence has been available indicating its association with any known hereditary trait. The purpose of this note is to point out such an association of sex-ratio with ABO blood groups in man. The data consist of ABO determinations of 1,330 mothers and cord blood of their newborn infants, delivered during the second half of 1944, at the Nowrosjee Wadia Maternity Hospital in Bombay. The original purpose of that investigation was to study the frequency of subgroups of A in the sample of mothers1 and the incidence of haemolytic anaemias in their newborn infants2,3. Recently there was occasion to re-examine the data for ABO determinations and sex-ratio in infants. Results of this analysis are given in Table 1.

Samuel Butler: 1835–1902

It is not quite proper to make the centenary of Samuel Butler's birth an occasion to do him honour. Not because in Erewhon it was customary not to touch upon such a painful subject, but because for Butler the date of a man's birth was much less important than the date of a man's death, when his real life begins. “A man should spend his life”—he wrote in his —Note Books— “or, rather, does spend his life in being born. His life is his birth throes.... I could not keep myself going at all if I did not believe that I was likely to inherit a good average three-score years and ten of immortality.” But he would be glad that we should make it an excuse to consider the maturity of his true self, the life which his work lives to-day, and the influence which he has so far exerted upon this century. For he was much concerned with the question of his permanent success, having failed to gain a hearing from his own generation. He felt that he could not hope to reach them, because it was his task to attack at the same time two principal sets of vested interests, the Church and Science, and because he valued his independence too highly to make any concessions to the leaders of the literary and academic world.

Proving the date of a man's birth

Proving the date of a man's birth

Captain Cook

IT seems on first thoughts rather a strange proceeding to publicly celebrate the centenary of the death of a great man, especially when that death was a murder. But this is what the Paris Geographical Society have arranged to do to-morrow in the case, not of any of their own explorers or navigators, but in the case of England's greatest exploring navigator, Captain James Cook, who was murdered 100 years ago to-morrow by the natives of the Sandwich Islands. But we know that the generous-minded Frenchmen do not intend to rejoice at the death of this great man, as they would do were it his birth they intended to commemorate. Cook, they know, was one of the greatest of geographical explorers, and it is quite natural and commendable that the Society, in their enthusiasm for their science and its promoters, should wish in some way to show their reverence for a man like Cook on the centenary of his remarkable death. Cook, and with him England, owed some gratitude to the French, whose government of the time, though at war with this country, generously gave instructions to their war-ships and colonial governors, not only not to molest Cook in his pursuit of knowledge, but to render him all reasonable assistance. It is obvious that only about every third generation can take part in celebrating the centenary of a man's birth, and it is natural, therefore, that those of the intermediate generation who count him among their heroes, should take advantage of the occurrence of the centenary of his death to show their appreciation of his greatness. In Cook's case birthday and death-day were only about half a century apart, the date of the former being October 27, 1728.