Sophisticated Practitioners Research Articles

The use of beverage alcohol as medicine, 1790-1860.

In the period from 1790 to 1860 beverage alcohol was, except in a few specific conditions, used sparingly by the most formally trained physicians, more often by less sophisticated practitioners and most frequently by families in the home.

Programs, Materials, and Techniques

Depending upon our individual perspectives, we are either delighted or depressed at the growing number of “cookbooks” available to the learning disabilities practitioner. It is assumed that cookbooks are somehow outside the realm of serious review or criticism. Sometimes this is because the more experienced and sophisticated practitioner believes that education cookbooks are not worthy of professional attention. On the other hand, a modest, homemade effort may believe itself to be immune from professional critique. Neither assumption is appropriate. If a product is created, distributed, advocated, and used, it requires serious professional attention and is subject to professional review. The column this month examines the entire role of cookbooks in learning disabilities by analyzing in some detail the original kitchen-related aspects of the term, by relating the results of this analysis to the classroom counterpart, and by suggesting a tentative brief outline to consider in evaluating cookbooks. A review of a recently submitted cookbook also is presented to show application of the considerations suggested.

The Analysis and Resolution of International Disputes

Summary The principal aim of this paper is to summarize the best ideas emerging during an informal workshop in which sophisticated scholars and practitioners participated in an effort to identify and appraise possible new approaches to analyzing and resolving international disputes. The results are outlined in terms of the analyses and descriptions of such disputes; the measures that might be taken before, during, and after the disputes have arisen; and some of the methodological problems that arise. These diverse, heterogeneous materials can be tentatively synthesized, it is argued, by postulating the ideal attributes of a Homo Pacificus.

Communication distortion. The language of patients and practitioners of dentistry

We hear much talk from our patients which, if it were to be taken literally, would be a gross distortion of what a patient truly wishes to communicate. The sophisticated practitioner of dentistry learns to evaluate information from his patients on a multidimensional level. A patient says much by his posture and by his dress; by the nature of his symptomatology and by the way he copes with or dramatizes illness. The wise dentist realizes that it is naive to believe that, in the one-to-one relationship between a dentist and a dental patient, communication takes place only on the verbal level. By deliberate discipline in training one's powers of observation, by being ready to listen rather than expound, by paying attention to a patient with the ear, eye, and heart, a dentist may then get the message behind the message.

The Visual Fields: A Textbook and Atlas of Clinical Perimetry, ed 2.

This popular textbook and atlas of visual fields should be read and then studied by ophthalmologists of all ages. is an easily readable book which bounces along with all the enthusiasm of its author. If you think the plotting of a visual field is a dull chore which should be delegated to your girl Friday then you and she also need this text. The author states—``In every case I have personally performed the visual field examination. The ophthalmic or neurological resident will find much wise advice from an experienced perimetrist; for example, It is imperative that too rigid routines of examination be avoided and Ingenuity must frequently be exercised to obtain the best results. Even the most sophisticated practitioner will be reminded of techniques that will be helpful. As an illustration the author explains clearly the method of simultaneous double stimulation... a technique of exposing similar test objects in