California medicine
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The possibility of myasthenia gravis must be considered in patients persistently complaining of weakness and fatigue. There may be many difficulties and pitfalls in differentiating myasthenia gravis from other disorders in which muscular weakness is a common complaint. Observation of a group of 36 patients with myasthenia gravis, and another group of 30 cases involving the differential diagnosis of myasthenia gravis, led to a conclusion that a physician should apply criteria carefully before arriving at a diagnosis of myasthenia gravis and instituting drug therapy, since nonmyasthenics may frequently respond with subjective improvement temporarily following administration of cholinergic drugs. Myasthenia gravis may be a more common disorder than was suspected in the past.
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California medicine · Dec 1957
Aspiration of gastric contents under anesthesia; a review and clinical study.
Aspiration of vomitus is one of the leading causes of anesthetic deaths. These deaths can be prevented only by proper evaluation of the patient preoperatively and assuming that any patient dealt with in emergency has a full stomach until proven otherwise. Preliminary observations on the incidence of "silent regurgitation and aspiration" in a series of patients anesthetized for elective operation indicated that by obtaining a smooth induction and preventing any respiratory obstruction during anesthesia, regurgitation and aspiration can be minimized.