Cross reactivity of Clostridium glycolicum with the latex particle slide agglutination reagent for Clostridium difficile identification

Three strains of unidentified clostridia and 15 known strains of Clostridium glycolicum were examined to investigate cross reactions with the latex particle agglutination reagent used to identify Clostridium difficile. The unknown strains were identified as Cl. glycolicum and cross reacting agglutination occurred in 15/15 (100%) stock Cl. glycolicum strains. Characteristics such as volatile fatty acid profile, propylene glycol fermentation, u.v. fluorescence and the production of p -cresol are required to distinguish between the two species.     

Dignity and Narrative Medicine

Critiques of the dehumanising aspects of contemporary medical practice have generated increasing interest in the ways in which health care can foster a holistic sense of wellbeing. We examine the relationship between two areas of this humanistic endeavour: narrative and dignity. This paper makes two simple arguments that are intuitive but have not yet been explored in detail: that narrative competence of carers is required for maintaining or recreating dignity, and that dignity promotion in health care practice is primarily narrative in form. The multiple meanings that dignity has in a person’s life are what give the concept power and can only be captured by narrative. This has implications for health care practice where narrative work will be increasingly required to support patient dignity in under-resourced and over-subscribed health care systems.     

Fossil evidence of interactions between plants and plant-eating mammals.

We document changes in mammalian dietary and foraging locomotor adaptation, and appearances and developments of angiosperm fruiting strategies and vegetation types since the late Cretaceous in the Euramerican region, and to some extent in low latitude Africa. These changes suggest: (i): an expansion in the exploitation of dry fruits and seeds by mammals on the ground as well as in the trees after the terminal Cretaceous dinosaur extinction; (ii) a relation between large nuts and rodents, which appear in the late Palaeocene and radiate in the late Eocene; (iii) a relation between primates and fleshy fruits established in the early-Middle Eocene when tropical forests reached their maximum latitudinal extent; (iv) a hiatus of several million years in the vertebrate exploitation of leaves after dinosaur extinction and before the first few mammalian herbivores in the Middle Palaeocene, followed by an expansion in the late Eocene when climates cooled and more open vegetation became established.