These head-to-head pieces in the BMJ are always fantastic for highlighting areas of uncertainty in medicine. I have to admit for this question, I fall firmly in the ‘No’ camp.

Toxoplasma infections, and all the personality changes that go with them (in rats) now seem even weirder…

If a disease has a vector, than chances are that the vector could be replaced with a needle and syringe.

You see diseases spread through needles all the time, with Hep C being one of the clearest examples of this (here in Scotland around half of the injecting drug using population have Hep C). Sometimes though, the disease is a bit more exotic.

In 1980’s Madrid, five injecting drug users (IDUs) who’d never been to a malarial zone, were hospitalised with the infection after sharing equipment with a friend who’d just returned from Guinea. This outbreak wasn’t a once off (it wasn’t even the first time it had happened in Spain); similar cases had been reported in the US for decades.

In Manhattan in 1933, a sailor just back from sea was found slumped in a park, with all the signs of an overdose. It wasn’t until after he died and was autopsied that the real diagnosis of malaria was made (determining where he’d caught the disease was made easier by the fact that every port he’d visited was tattooed on his arms)

Unfortunately, before coming into hospital this sailor had visited a shooting gallery, and shared equipment with others (similar to what’s pictured below). In total 49 IDUs caught malaria, and 22 died.

But what occurred in 1940’s Chicago is an example of fantastic resourcefulness from the city’s dealers. Noticing they had a similar outbreak amongst their clients (and perhaps with knowledge of how many customers died in New York), they came up with a solution; cut their heroin with quinine. Quinine’s still found in heroin today, its bitter taste being used to fool many into believing the heroin’s pure, and when injected it helps increase the rush felt. But it’s also one of the oldest antimalarials.

So antimalarials were added to the city’s heroin supply, and thanks to their unpredicted advantages they stayed put. What’s brilliant though, is that this 1940s solution to sick customers was saving lives in 1980’s Spain, as the quinine in heroin kept the outbreak in check. Through cutting the heroin, you cut the cases of malaria.

This is a short post (read: rushed, incomplete, and a bit rubbish) in attempt to get back into posting on here. Over the last month I’ve been looking into what infections seem to occur more in IDU’s, and will be posting more on the subject over the next few weeks.

Well it’s been a while since I posted, but we’re back at Uni now, in 4th year after taking a year out for that science degree, so there’s a piece on Opthalmology in the works. Until then though, here’s a fantastic piece by @mjrobbins on how social media has taken it’s place in society; and how it helps everything from revolutions in authoritarian states to cleaning up after the london riots.

It’s going to be very quiet here until September, as I’m off to enjoy the longest summer I will ever have. Off to Switzerland for the next few weeks, then to India for a month after that. 

Anyway, when term starts up again at the end of August, I’ll be back in the clinical years of my course. So these posts will become less focused on one specialist subject, and more open to whatever interests me that week.

So hi to the new followers, and apologies for the fact I’m going to abandon this for quite a while. Have a great summer, speak soon.

- The Lancet

Each of us when separated, having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the tally-half of a man, and he is always looking for his other half. Men who are a section of that double nature which was once called androgynous are lovers of women. … The women who are a section of the woman do not care for men, but have female attachments; the female companions are of this sort. But they who are a section of the male follow the male, and while they are young, being slices of the original man, they have affection for men and embrace them.

- Aristophanes’s Speech from Plato’s Symposium

When we think of people and their partners, we may not agree with Aristophanes that we’re looking for the other part of the person we once were, back before we pissed off Zeus; but many still look for their ‘other half’.

With these thoughts of two halves; when we look at those who have been in a (happy) relationship for a while, it’s often surprising how similar they can be to one another. If you take your favourite grandparents as an example, the similarity isn’t just in mannerisms and views, often it’s in appearance and facial expressions. Of course, people will often choose relationships with those they’re similar to in the first place; but it’s much more than that. If you follow these relationships, as time passes the two partners become more and more alike. Not only that, but the happier the relationship, the more the couple ‘merges’ in appearance (1)

Why would this happen?

Read More

Turns out asterix and obelix themselves were responsible for well over half of traumatic brain injuries in the books (57.6% if we’re counting). Apparently the magic potion may have had something to do with these high rates….

Source: http://twitter.com/#!/helenjaques/status/81482464811429888

(although, the link in that tweet’s broken, the one in this post should work fine)

cranquis:

“Like a bomb went off. ”  That’s the only way that I can describe what we saw next.  Patients were coming into the ED in droves.  It was absolute, utter chaos.  They were limping, bleeding, crying, terrified, with debris and glass sticking out of them, just thankful to be alive.  The floor was covered with about 3 inches of water, there was no power, not even backup generators, rendering it completely dark and eerie in the ED.  The frightening aroma of methane gas leaking from the broken gas lines permeated the air; we knew, but did not dare mention aloud, what that meant.  I redoubled my pace.

This is chilling, thrilling, and just WOW.

(via jennydoesstuff)