West Review Research Articles

The Abduction of Helen: A Reappraisal

‘Bad poetry is written daily, and married women seduced; but it is seldom that a seduction becomes as famous as Helen's, or that a poem as bad as Colluthus’ survives for fourteen centuries to be re-edited with all the apparatus of scholarship and equipped with commentary at the rate of a page for every two lines of verse. γᾷ δ' ἐπισκήπτων πιϕαύσκω: Colluthus is one of the very worst ancient poets to have come down to us. His only notion of the art is to arrange in hexameters phrases borrowed from his predecessors, with little sense of their appropriateness or of narrative coherence. It is as if a parrot had learnt to fit his pseudo-speech to the metre of Shakespeare. Colluthus can give delight, but only to a connoisseur of the ludicrous.’ The opening paragraph of Martin West's review of Enrico Livrea's annotated edition of Colluthus may be the most devastating appreciation of The Abduction of Helen ever written. At the other end stands Giuseppe Giangrande's review of the same edition: ‘Colluthus was a poète savant, who delighted in skillfully borrowing, often with felicitous “humour” and “malice”, from his epic models, and who dexterously applied oppositio in imitando within the framework of arte allusiva.’

The Physiologic Basis of High-Altitude Diseases

Letters5 April 2005The Physiologic Basis of High-Altitude DiseasesBuddha Basnyat, MDBuddha Basnyat, MDFrom Nepal International Clinic, Kathmandu, Nepal.Search for more papers by this authorAuthor, Article, and Disclosure Informationhttps://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-142-7-200504050-00021 SectionsAboutFull TextPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail TO THE EDITOR:I read West's review on the physiologic basis of high-altitude diseases (1) with interest. A large recent trial in the Nepalese Himalayas involving 614 western trekkers convincingly showed that Ginkgo biloba was not effective in the prevention of acute mountain sickness (2). Perhaps this study should have been included in West's review. Although this field study did have some limitations, it revealed that gingko caused significantly increased headache when combined with acetazolamide compared with acetazolamide alone.Buddha Basnyat, MDNepal International Clinic; Kathmandu, Nepal

The Physiologic Basis of High-Altitude Diseases

Letters5 April 2005The Physiologic Basis of High-Altitude DiseasesMatiram PunMatiram PunFrom Institute of Medicine, Kathmandu, Nepal.Search for more papers by this authorAuthor, Article, and Disclosure Informationhttps://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-142-7-200504050-00023 SectionsAboutFull TextPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail TO THE EDITOR:John B. West, an icon in the field of respiratory physiology, has written an excellent review on the physiologic basis of high-altitude disease (1). The review nicely described acute mountain sickness, high-altitude cerebral edema, and high-altitude pulmonary edema. Dr. West also discussed chronic mountain sickness, subacute mountain sickness, and retinal hemorrhages, disorders that are often overlooked.However, I do believe that some points were not adequately highlighted. First, Dr. West's review should have included more information about focal neurologic deficits, which are important to the diagnosis of high-altitude problems and many other subclinical diseases that manifest in ...

Mr A. M. P odhalicz writes

Engineering geologists and geotechnical engineers will welcome Graham West's review of the current practices in the site investigations for tunnels, and their effectiveness. West points out some discrepancies between the computer-predicted model of the geology along the route of the Jubilee Line extension and the results of the site investigation boreholes. Those discrepancies were a necessary consequence of simplifications needed to design a computer model used by Sir William Halcrow & Partners and Mott, Hay & Anderson (1973). The model was based mainly on logs of water boreholes from the London area which generally contained simple descriptions of lithology without giving stratigraphic provenance of the formation. Therefore, a deliberate decision has been made to treat the Blackheath Beds and Woolwich and Reading Beds as a single lithological unit. My recent Australasian experience prompts me to comment on two other points made by West. Where, on mountainous sites like Dinorvic, access to borehole positions is difficult, helicopters can be used to advantage; the whole operation of dismantling the rig into air-portable parts, moving it and reassembling it ready to drill on a new site can be carried out in a single day. In difficult strata, such as very weak friable Pliocene sandstone or volcanic rock with clay-filled joints, full core recovery can often be achieved using large diameter (PQ3) triple tube wireline core barrels. Cores of firm to stiff clays obtained in this way are considered (when sealed on site) to be more suited for triaxial testing than samples from normal