Vertical Cut Research Articles

EVALUATION OF LEUCOTOMY RESULTS

Investigations of discharged cases after successful leucotomy resulted in the following findings: 1. The likelihood of a patient being discharged after leucotomy is greater if he is less than middle-aged; it does not depend on the preoperative duration of illness if the personality is preserved. 2. Discharge is also significantly higher when leucotomy is performed as a low vertical incision. 3. It is demonstrated that personality modifications can be better achieved by the orbital than by the other types of operative incisions. These personality changes are attributable to structural damages of the lower quadrants of the frontal lobes. 4. These postoperative personality changes are superimposed on the pre-existing symptomatology, and it was found that patients showing introversion, lack of initiative, shallowness of affects, etc., are more likely to respond favourably to the low vertical cut. 5. The reintegration between the pre- and postoperative symptomatology is a function of the total personality. Deteriorated patients are incapable of readjustment, and only cases with well-preserved personalities should be operated upon.

Phonetic Frequency Distribution in Formal American Pronunciation

The speech of radio announcers was chosen as approaching the norm for a formal type of general American Speech. 5946 radio announcements were studied. The announcer was identified through the mail after his program had been phonographically recorded through a vertical cut electrical recording head directly from the radio onto a wax record. These records were played and replayed until certainty as to just which sounds occurred could be ascertained. These records totalling 665,094 were recorded in phonetic notations (I.P.A.). The occurrence of each sound was counted and the data tabulated into frequency tables. The relative percentages of occurrence of each sound were determined and compared.

IX. Experiments on Phyllotaxis. II. — The effect of displacing a primordium

Part 1.— Introduction. (1) Nature and Purpose of the operations, and Methods. Experiments on Lupinusalhus were reported previously in which the arrangement of the subsequent leaves was changed as a result of the isolation from the stem apex of the region from which the next leaf or the next but one was due to arise (Snow and Sn o w , 1931). The results led to the conclusion that each new leaf-primordium arises in the first space that attains both a certain minimum width and a certain minimum distance below the apex (p. 36), a conclusion which strongly supports v a n It e r so n ’s theory of phyllotaxis (1907). The purpose of the present experiments was to test this conclusion further by means of a different operation performed on the same plant. The conclusion of the previous paper will therefore be taken again as a working hypothesis, and an attempt will be made to explain the present results on the basis of it. In the present experiments a slight vertical cut was made in a radial plane through the area from which the next primordium was due to arise, or in other words through the presumptive area of Ix (for terminology see section 4). The cut sometimes extended downwards a little way below this presumptive area, but probably never reached more than a very little above it. This operation was considered to be a suitable method for testing the conclusions reached previously for the following reasons. Firstly, if the centres of primordia arise only in positions that allow room for their stipules, as the previous results indicated (p. 23), any primordia arising in contact with the sides of the wound should arise with their centres at some distance from it, and consequently at some distance from the normal position of the centre of Ix. Secondly, as a result of these displacements, the positions of the subsequent primordia should also be changed, if they arise in accordance with the working hypothesis

Recent Investigations on the Cultivation of Rubber 1

EXPERIMENTS on the cultivation and preparation of rubber are being pushed forward at several stations, and the results are discussed in the agricultural journals circulating in tropical and subtropical countries. Methods of tapping the tree have been studied in Hawaii, and found to have a marked effect on the yield of latex. Trees tapped with a V-cut gave much less than others with a vertical cut, the greater yield, however, being partly due to the fact that the length of the incision in the latter case is greater than in the former. No advantage was gained from the use of four cuts daily instead of two. The effects of nitrate of soda on the flow of latex have also been studied. Fertilisers are in use in rubber plantations for increasing the growth and vigour of the trees, and it now appears that nitrate of soda also increases the flow of latex. In one experiment a group of five trees yielded 0.9 oz. of dry rubber in three days before applying the nitrate, and 1.3 oz. in the three days following its application, each tree receiving half a pound of the fertiliser. How far the method is economical has yet to be determined. All these experiments were made with Ceara rubber trees.

Notes on the Theory and Treatment of Diseases among the Mackenzie River Eskimo

THE following notes were collected among the Eskimo east of the mouth of the Mackenzie River. Formerly among the Mackenzie River Eskimo there were numerous medicine-men. Their arts are practised but with little faith by men who look upon their own ministrations about as we do upon our efforts for an invalid's well-being at a time when a physician cannot be reached. The recent contact with missionaries, and intercourse with whalers since 1889 (and fur-traders a little earlier), have decreased the faith in magical practices, but not in counter-irritation and bleeding. The blood-letter's knife is the Eskimo's cure-all. In general, so far as I could understand it, diseases are caused by blood. The logical cure for most diseases is therefore bleeding. The incision is usually (but not always) over the seat of pain. In the first operation they seem satisfied with drawing a small quantity of blood; but if a second cutting becomes necessary, or a third one, more is drawn each time. The cutting is done by any one present who happens to have a sharp knife, or who is skilful through practice in performing these operations. Sometimes the patient himself does the cutting. Most people are sick at one time or another. Especially as old age approaches do pains of various sorts become troublesome. A man or woman beyond middle life is therefore sure to have scars on various parts of the body. On one man's back alone I counted over twenty. Some of them, as nearly as could be learned, had been made for pleurisy, but others for rheumatism. Consumptives are cut both on the breast and back. Ordinarily the cuts are horizontal, and some scars I have seen indicate wounds two inches long. Certain kinds of pain are treated with vertical cuts. Boils, so far as my observation goes, are cut horizontally across the middle, the cut going as far to either side as the margin of the redness which surrounds the boil. The boil might be said to be bisected to base level. The theory of disease depending on bad blood, sometimes presents interesting variations. Snow-blindness, for instance, is described as follows: In winter, on account of the fact that the hood of the coat does not protect the front or top of the forehead forward of the cheek-bones, the blood is forced back by the cold from the eyes and temples to the top of the head; there it remains, thickened for the want of the sun's light and heat. In the spring, when the sun comes back after its midwinter stay below the horizon, the blood is gradually thinned out, and begins

Further studies on regeneration in Asterias vulgaris

1. Out of a total of 1914 star-fish examined, 206 or 10.76% were regenerating under natural conditions. One or more arms were growing out from the disc in all cases excepting one in which the distal portion of an arm was being restored. 2. Single arms of Asterias vulgaris live from two to three weeks whether the digestive coeca be removed or not. They are not able to regenerate the rest of the animal. 3. If a piece of the disc containing only the madreporite and the stone canal remains attached to an arm, regeneration of the missing parts occurs in exceptional cases. 4. The disc alone will regenerate all of the missing arms. One-half of the disc does not regenerate owing, doubtless, to the great extent of cut surface. 5. If a vertical cut be made across the disc from the intersection of two arms to the mouth, one or two extra arms grow out from the wound in the disc in a small per cent of the experiments. In a great majority of cases the cut edges come together and unite completely, no extra arms being formed. 6. The madreporite has no fixed position in the new disc. 7. If the arms of Asterias vulgaris are mutilated by cutting wedge-shaped, semi-circular or rectangular pieces from them, the missing parts are regenerated and the normal shape of the arms is completely restored in the course of three months.