Tidsskrift for den Norske lægeforening : tidsskrift for praktisk medicin, ny række
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Tidsskr. Nor. Laegeforen. · Jan 1999
Review[Should pethidine still be administered to women in labor?].
According to surveys from 1988, 1992 and 1996, Norwegian obstetric departments are still to a large extent using pethidine as birth analgesia. In this article we report recent knowledge of various pharmacological effects of pethidine in mothers and newborns. Pethidine has mainly a sedative effect, but very little analgesic effect in parturients. ⋯ As a result, breastfeeding is delayed and the mother-infant interaction is disturbed according to recent studies. There is concern about the more or less routine administration of pethidine in many hospitals. We conclude that obstetric departments should reconsider their use of pethidine.
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All medication administered to patients admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit was registered during a one-year period (1996). Only two (0.4%) of 469 infants admitted were not given any drug at all. A total of 12,019 single doses were administered, a mean of 33 per day. 7,042 (59%) were given orally, and 3,332 (28%) intravenously. 292 (63%) patients were given vitamin K as the only drug. 113 infants (24%) received systemic antibiotic treatment, 5% of all infants born alive at the hospital. ⋯ To a limited extent (44%) this was followed by correction of the dose. One single drug dose (1 per 10,000 doses) was administered to a patient for whom the drug was not prescribed. Quality assurance of medication is an important task in neonatal intensive care units.
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Tidsskr. Nor. Laegeforen. · Dec 1998
Historical Article[Who were the healers in medieval Trondheim?].
When Trondheim celebrated its millenium in 1997, this also marked a 1000 year-old medical tradition. In medieval times, sick and disabled people made their pilgrimage to the Nidaros cathedral and the grave of Saint Olav (995-1030). Working from the assumption that every organized society develops rituals and rules to deal with disease and death, we have looked for evidence of what kind of healers one would expect there were in medieval Trondheim up to the reformation in 1537. ⋯ The charitable clerics emerged with Christianity. The "professional" wound healers evolved from the needs of the military, later to merge with the early barber surgeons. Traces of scientific traditions, the Salerno school and early European university medicine can be found in local texts, but there is no evidence of any university educated doctor practising in Trondheim before the 17th century.
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The Greek word aorta means lifter. The vessel was so termed because Aristotle, who first described it, assumed that the heart was lifted by/hanging in aorta. Leonardo da Vinci described the detailed anatomy of aorta. ⋯ In 1955 he suffered rupture and died after having refused operation. In 1951 the first successful operation for abdominal aortic aneurysm was performed in Paris by Charles Dubost. With slight modifications, the same operative technique is used today.