Stocky Body Research Articles

The Price of a Room

The Price of a Room Lynn A. Darroch Nancy and I probably never would have become lovers if we had met back in the States, but as two northerners grateful for the intimacy of our own language in Lima's provocative embrace, we fell for each other without any of the usual considerations. Maybe it was just the humid caress of foreign air that colored Nancy's cheeks and gave our idle wishes the need for flesh. It wasn't until later that I discovered how different we really were, and how hard it was for us to simply get along together from day to day. Nevertheless, we held on for over three months, seeking out companionship on hot lonely afternoons only to storm apart in restless irritation when the city came alive for the evening. Now Nancy was leaving for a month in Brazil, while I would fly back to the States within three weeks. This was to be our last night together. My friend Luis called in the early afternoon, just as I returned from lunch. He said he was coming over to loan me a book. We drank some beer and talked until we heard Nancy calling up from the street below. She was early. "I talked to Nancy on the telephone this morning," Luis said with a smile. "She said she'd try to come while I was still here." He jumped up to get the door, taking the stairs two at a time. I leaned out the window to watch them. Luis's white shirt and tan pants looked cool against his dark skin. Nancy's face was red. They kissed on the cheek. I was staying in my friend Salazar's small room while he was on vacation, very humble accomodations for a gringo, but adequate for my needs: one chair, a stool, a mattress on the floor and an empty TV stand. Salazar's clothes and books were piled in boxes below the large, arched windows that opened onto the street, where the evening breeze rustled the dusty avocado trees. Both Salazar and Luis were students at la Católica University, and I'd met Luis through him. Luis had met Nancy through me. . . . I took Salazar's room when it became obvious that the owner of my former boardinghouse, the eighty-year-old Señorita Cecilia Monteros, was serious about not allowing women to stay overnight with me ("I am only half-Peruvian," she told me, her chin characteristically upraised. "I spoke French before I learned Spanish. My house has a good name."). Salazar had an understanding with the family he rented from, and Luis arranged the deal; he was in fact 38ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW giving up the room for me, since he'd been staying there for free after Salazar had gone. It was Luis who talked to the owner, told me how much money to give him, and handed me the keys. Luis was a model of consideration and decorum, a young man everyone could count on. Luis played host for us that first night I got the room, walking Nancy and me around the neighborhood to point out restaurants, the local market, and the post office. He didn't show us the apartment building where he lived with his family, although it was only four blocks away. I treated us to roast chicken in a fluorescent-lit restaurant. Afterward, Luis almost bowed out of the room to leave us alone on Salazar's narrow mattress. We turned out the lights and left the windows open to the sea breeze rustling the avocado leaves. Luis proved a loyal and helpful friend to me, and I enjoyed the company of his solid, stocky body and the way his round head nodded seriously as we talked. A mestizo and a student ofsociology, Luis hoped someday to do useful work and rise above the station of his father, a minor civil servant who paid the tuition. On my birthday Luis gave me a hearty embrace. I bought the beer. Luis was captivated by Nancy's vivacious energy and her easy willingness to stay the nights with me — something few Peruvian women of her...

Hyperparathyroidism with Albright's osteodystrophy: Case report and a proposed new classification of parathyroid disease.

ABSTRACT A patient with hyperparathyroidism due to a chief cell adenoma was found to coincidentally have Albright's osteodystrophy (brachydactyly, short stocky body, round face). If the current nonsensical nomenclature of parathyroid disease were logically extended she could be reported as a new clinical entity entitled “pseudopseudohypohyperparathyroidism”! But, nosologically, this is patently absurd. A new classification of parathyroid disease is proposed, based on etiologic and physiologic considerations, which excludes needlessly confusing and misleading terminology.

ODD MEN OUT: INDIVIDUALS WITH EXTREME VALUES.

A RECENT analysis by Russell and Conley 1 of so-called benign polycythemia, or Gaisbock's syndrome, showed a high frequency of stocky body build, plethoric appearance, anxiety tension state, hypertension, and vascular disease; genetic factors were thought to play a significant role in the pathogenesis. Their report, together with those of Lawrence, Berlin, and Huff 2 and Kaung and Peterson, 3 may leave the impression that benign polycythemia is a nosological entity. It is the purpose of this essay to point out that benign polycythemia is neither a disease sui generis nor a syndrome demanding nosological recognition, and to support Wintrobe 4 that there is probably no such entity. The condition as described was not benign and not polycythemia; its apparent association with stocky body build, hypertension, and vascular disease was probably influenced by the mode of case selection, and no convincing data were given to support the contention of abnormally high