Older Russian emigrés and medical care.

Although emigration from the former Soviet Union is dramatically increasing nationwide, little information has been reported on the medical problems of these emigrés. For older emigrés in particular, the medical realities of aging, in combination with cultural expectations, make the United States'' medical system an arena where the stresses of emigration are expressed and help is sought. We describe the influences of culture and aging on older emigrés'' health and interaction with the American medical system. A qualitative, exploratory study was done of problems and issues in health care use by older Russian emigrés at the ambulatory medical clinic of Mount Zion Medical Center, San Francisco. Cultural expectations and beliefs about health, adaptive health behaviors learned in the former Soviet Union, the stresses of emigration, and the medical realities of aging can result in serious problems in the care and treatment of older Russian emigrés. Recommended solutions include educating emigrés and health care professionals, integrating mental health services into the primary care setting, and expanding supportive services in the community such as adult day health care.     

Electron microscopy—The U.K. involvement

The development of the electron microscope in the advanced form we know today is the result of a loosely organized but effective world-wide scientific and technological collaboration, that readily transcends national and cultural barriers. The birth of the subject was undoubtedly in Berlin but the United Kingdom has played a prominent part, sometimes in an accidental way, at critical periods in this development both at the scientific and manufacturing level. In 1927, for example, G.P. Thompson established experimentally the wave nature of the electron and its scattering and diffraction by thin foils. This followed his invention of the electron diffraction camera at a time when De Broglie's postulates on the wave of nature of the electron were not enjoying much support, even in his native France. C.W. Oatley in Cambridge University was successful in introducing the first commercial scanning electron microscope (SEM) where several commercial firms had previously failed. D. Gabor invented electron holography in a moment of boredom while watching a tennis match. The U.K. has also played a key role in fostering international collaboration by means of conferences and exchange visits between electron microscopists. The present paper concentrates on some of the critical developments that took place in the U.K. in the commercial development of transmission electron microscopy, in scanning electron microscopy and more recently in high resolution electron microscopy. These developments are placed as far as possible in a world-wide context.     

The 1989 James A. F. Stevenson memorial lecture. The knee jerk: still an enigma?

This is a wide-ranging review of muscle proprioceptors, intended primarily for the nonspecialist. It emphasizes how much more they are concerned with, than just the production of the knee jerk; it concentrates on principle rather than documenting detail and cites selectively. The main topics covered are the effect of deafferentation, position sense, the proprioceptors themselves, the control of the muscle spindle by the CNS, and spinal and long-latency "stretch" reflexes. The emphasis is on human work. The knee jerk itself is seen as a "physiological artefact," resulting from a mode of stimulation that does not occur in life, with the normal function of its underlying circuitry still under debate.