In memoriam: Maurice A. Bigelow

Abstract

Interracial children of white mothers and black fathers were compared to interracial children of black mothers and white fathers on growth rates during the first year of life. Results indicate that interracial children of white mothers gained less weight between birth and four months of age than did interracial children of black mothers or monoracial black or white children. By one year of age, catch‐up growth appears to have occurred, and there is little evidence for lasting effects of the growth retardation during the first four months of life.     

IAB presidential address: bioethics in a globalized world: creating space for flourishing human relationships

Bioethics in a globalized world is meeting a number of challenges - fundamentalism in its different forms, and a focus on economic growth neglecting issues such as equity and sustainability, being prominent among them. How well are we as bioethicists equipped to make meaningful contributions in these times? The paper identifies a number of restraints and proceeds to probe potential resources such as the capability approach, care ethics, cosmopolitanism, and pragmatism. These elements serve to outline a perspective that focuses on the preconditions for flourishing human relationships as a way to address bioethical challenges in a globalized world.     

Clotrimazole as a pharmaceutical: past,present and future.

Clotrimazole is a broad‐spectrum antimycotic drug mainly used for the treatment of Candida albicans and other fungal infections. A synthetic, azole antimycotic, clotrimazole is widely used as a topical treatment for tinea pedis (athlete's foot), as well as vulvovaginal and oropharyngeal candidiasis. It displays fungistatic antimycotic activity by targeting the biosynthesis of ergosterol, thereby inhibiting fungal growth. As well as its antimycotic activity, clotrimazole has become a drug of interest against several other diseases such as sickle cell disease, malaria and some cancers. It has also been combined with other molecules, such as the metals, to produce clotrimazole complexes that show improved pharmacological efficacy. Moreover, several new, modified‐release pharmaceutical formulations are also undergoing development. Clotrimazole is a very well‐tolerated product with few side effects, although there is some drug resistance appearing among immunocompromised patients. Here, we review the pharmaceutical chemistry, application and pharmacology of clotrimazole and discuss future prospects for its further development as a chemotherapeutic agent.     

Universities and medical schools: reflections on a half-century of Canadian medical education.

After 50 years of accelerated development, universities and medical schools have entered a period of uncertainty and instability. The Flexnerian paradigm of medical education, rooted in biomedical science and conducted under the aegis of a university, reached its apotheosis by the late 1960s and the early 1970s. Fuelled by the introduction of comprehensive, government-sponsored health care insurance and advances in technology, the demand for health care professionals and for access to facilities increased sharply. Medical education, research and advanced clinical services expanded dramatically aided by the emergence of academic health sciences centres and accompanied by a wave of medical curriculum reform. Now medical schools must strike a dynamic balance in responding to the continued expansion of knowledge and technology, the demand for social equity and the exigencies of prolonged fiscal constraint. They must also balance the biological and sociological approaches to medicine in establishing the foundations for the future development of Canadian medical education.     

A half-century of neurotransmitter research: impact on neurology and psychiatry. Nobel lecture

The effect that research on dopamine and other neutro trasmitters has on disciplines like neurology and psychiatry is described.