Groups Of Strangers Research Articles

Waterlogging and Salinity in the Indus Plain : Some Basic Consideration

It takes more than ordinary population for a group of strangers to recommends changes in the efforts of a great nation to contend with a problem that goes that goes to the very roofs of its social structure and its livelihood. Yet we did just that in our Report on Land and Water Development in the Indus Plain[l]. We hoped our recommendations would be considered sympathetically and debated fully, that our sound suggestions would be adopted and our unsound ones forgiven. All this has been granted us, and more. The months since the Panel's report was prepared have been eventful for the economic development of West Pakistan. It is hard to cast our minds back to the gloom that filled the atmosphere when the Panel was convened. Food production had been stagnant for the past several years, sem and thur were spreading through the most productive portions of the Plain, expensive efforts to control these twin menaces had been baffled. WAPDA knew, of course, that in principle tubswells could do the job, but there were more failures to report than successes

THE PARADOX OF THE WELL-INTENTIONED ENEMIES OF MEDICAL RESEARCH.

There are those who seem to have an abiding memory of their first violent moment outside the womb, when the doctor held them upside down by the feet and spanked them. Either forgetting or never knowing the purpose of this obstetrical routine, they continue in adult life to hold this event against all doctors—and maybe they are right—they shouldn't have breathed. This is only one explanation for the existence of a strange group of people who have created an American paradox. That is, they willingly, almost anxiously, spend immense amounts of time and money to fight for measures which are against their own general welfare and to fight against measures which are in their own general interest. Someone has said, If there were no problems there would be no need for people, and so it may be a jest of the gods that the types of persons I have just

Psychological Preparation for Surgery

NEARLY all practicing surgeons would agree in principle that a total-care approach to the management of patients undergoing surgery should include careful psychological preparation. But such preparation for emotional and social problems resulting from hospitalization, surgery, convalescence, and rehabilitation is not always regarded as essential to comprehensive medicine, even though the literature attests to its importance. Kaufman (1) writing of the patient's need for emotional support, states: patient must be emotionally prepared to accept necessary surgery without undue and fear. Everything must be directed toward reducing the psychological stress and trauma of anesthesia and surgery to a minimum. The patient must receive the emotional support he needs and deserves during the immediate postoperative periods. . . . A properly utilized half hour or hour of psychological preparation may give the patient sufficient emotional security to obviate preventable psychosomatic complications. Furthermore, it seems to me that such briefing reduces the patient's anxieties and fears to such an extent that he takes the anesthesia better and has less postoperative pain and discomfort. . . . And he seems to make speedier recovery from the effects of surgery than the patient who is emotionally unprepared. This is equally true for emotionally normal patients as it is for neurotic patients. Dyk and Sutherland (2) also stress the surgical patient's need for emotional guidance and rapport with his surgeon. In their study of colostomy patients they found that anxiety and fear of injury, in some cases mounting to confusion, panic, or despair, were reported by all as reactions to impending surgery. In another report, concerned with depressive reactions of patients to cancer surgery, Sutherland and Orbach (3), after speaking of anxieties about the nature of the disease, the impending surgery, possible death, or postsurgical social isolation and inacceptability, commented: These reactions are particularly prone to occur when the patient is unable to relate to medical personnel. . . . Mistrust is reinforced by the impersonality of clinic and ward procedures and the 'faceless surgeons.' To one depressed patient, surgery represented being cut up by a group of strangers. Elsewhere, Sutherland (4) wrote: Apparently prophylaxis is the best treatment. A warm relationship between the patient and the physician is essential. This relationship should permit the doctor to be seen as protective rather than threatening; it should permit easy comDr. Brant is assistant professor of anthropology and sociology, Portland State College, Portland, Oreg., and was formerly research associate in surgery at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Volk is assistant professor of surgery, and Dr. Kutner is assistant professor of preventive and environmental medicine at the Albert Einstein College. Their research was supported by the Russell Sage Foundation and by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, Public Health Service.

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

W ERE RIP VAN WINKLE TO VIEW America's industrial scene today, he would be more than slightly confused. He might be downright confoundedand rightfully so. Old Rip would run into trouble talking with former pals. True, some of his difficulty could be simply a matter of semantics-but the terminology of U. S. industry in 1953 brings difficulties even for those of today. You need not be Rip to realize that, not so long ago, no one had heard of the host of antibiotics that have transformed the drug industry, of Cinerama, of polyethylene, or of transistors. The kind of associates known to Rip has vastly changed. A cosy group of chaps that thrived happily as glass blowers-incandescent bulb making was their business-now have their shops teeming with electronic engineers and are in the thick of an industry whose present potential is rated greater than the automobile was in Henry Ford's day. Rip would discover that food makers also launch plastic weather balloons for the Army, and this is just one item in General Mills' program of diversification, which includes organic chemicals and precision instruments! A strange group of bedfellows constitute the contracting business, as evidenced by the role that du Pont and Goodyear Tire & Rubber play for the Atomic Energy Commission. Indeed, AEC has wedded such divergent interests as Dow Chemical Company and Detroit Edison Company, and Monsanto Chemical and Union Electric Company of Missouri, who have joined forces to explore the possibilities of using atomic energy for the production of electric power. Today Rip would meet rail analysts who measure the prospects of a carrier not only in terms of traffic density but also by the oil-productive possibilities of their land holdings. Such is the current approach to Union Pacific, Northern Pacific, and certain other railroads. He would also discover analysts discussing textile companies, relating their position to the chemical industryCelanese Corporation is a case in point. Reversing this situation, he might find the future of Union Carbide in the chemical field being measured in part by the possible importance of Dynel among synthetic textile fibers, and du Pont by its nylon and Orlon.

The Nature of a Species in Paleontology, and a New Kind of Type Specimen

Previous articleNext article FreeThe Nature of a Species in Paleontology, and a New Kind of Type SpecimenEdward L. TroxellEdward L. Troxell Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Geology Volume 29, Number 5Jul. - Aug., 1921 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/622798 Views: 54Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Dan H. Nicolson PROPOSALS TO AMEND THE CODE, TAXON 40, no.44 (Jun 2019): 667–686.https://doi.org/10.2307/1222790

III.—The Position of the Merostomata

More than fifty years since a great impulse was given to the study of a new and strange group of Palæozoic Arthropoda whose remains were almost simultaneously brought to light in New York, in England, Scotland, and in the Baltic island of Oesel, and attracted the attention of numerous palæontologists both in this country and in America. Among others may be cited Hugh Miller and the elder Agassiz, who at first believed them to be fish (1844), but the latter afterwards was convinced that they were in reality the remains of an enormous Crustacean.