Neurosurgery
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Historical Article
Wounded by bayonet, ball, and bacteria: medicine and neurosurgery in the American Civil War.
The American Civil War was a holocaust that illustrated the mid-19th century's unpreparedness for the delivery of medical care to the mass casualties due to both wounds and disease. Several major considerations are offered to explain the soldiers' morbidity. Incomplete understanding of pathophysiology and its management is exemplified by the treatment of the battlefield head injury. Accepting these concepts and the extent of the knowledge of the time, that higher mortality did not occur is in part testimony to the admirable care that was rendered and human resilience in an effort to survive.
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Case Reports
Subarachnoid hemorrhage from a peripheral intracranial aneurysm associated with malignant glioma: report of a case.
The case of a patient who initially presented with a subarachnoid hemorrhage from an aneurysm of the distal left middle cerebral artery is reported. The aneurysm was later found to have occurred within a malignant glioma. Histological analysis showed tumor infiltrating the wall of the aneurysm. A causal relationship between growth of the tumor and development and rupture of the aneurysm is postulated.
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The professional career of Loyal Davis, M. D., M. ⋯ It was characterized by his fidelity to his mentors, his ideals, his institution, his organization, and his journal. The unusual name, Loyal, was well chosen by his parents; it was predictive of his behavior throughout a long and productive life.
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Biography Historical Article
Francois Quesnay and the birth of brain surgery.
The life and contributions to neurosurgery of Francois Quesnay, a French surgeon who was active during the mid-18th century, are presented. Quesnay, still famous as economist and as the founder of one of the earliest systems of economics, is largely forgotten as a surgeon, although he was the first to advocate cortical incision and exploration of the brain for abscesses and tumors.
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Case Reports
Concurrent pineoblastoma and unilateral retinoblastoma: a forme fruste of trilateral retinoblastoma?
A 10-month-old boy who presented with strabismus and symptoms of intracranial hypertension was found to have a pineoblastoma and a unilateral ocular retinoblastoma. Despite enucleation of the eye, subtotal removal of the pineoblastoma, and craniospinal axis irradiation, the patient died 6 months later from disseminated intracranial neoplasm. As there was no clinical evidence of bilateral retinoblastoma, this case may represent a forme fruste of the trilateral retinoblastoma complex. The clinicopathological features of this unusual syndrome are reviewed.