[Influence of individual cultural life on the penal system: the role of the medical expert].

A French Melanesian citizen who killed his uncle attributed his act to local beliefs involving witchcraft. The medical expert called on to give his psychiatric assessment ponders if he was able to fulfill his role of mediator. Since examination of the defendant revealed no mental abnormalities, the only possible explanation for the crime was the one implicating the local culture that made the defendant say that he had not killed a relative but rather a sorcerer.

[Note about Caledonian ethno-medicine (author's transl)].

Natives of New Caledonia believe that both worlds of the living creatures and of the dead are the same but with two aspects. Still these two worlds frequently oppose each other: witches are able on the request of the dead, to cast spell over; but medicine-men, if requested in due time, can prevent or cure their bad effects. Among the various noxious consequences of witches action is madness, which is not considered as a mental illness but either as a consequence of a spell or as punishment for a tabu transgression.

[Neurological disorders in sickle-cell disease (author's transl)].

Neurological disorders may be, specially in children, the first and dramatic troubles giving notice of the hematological disease. These disorders, listed according to their frequency are: cerebral vascular thrombosis, epilepsy, bacterial meningitis, meningism, cerebral thrombo-phlebitis, disorders of cranial nerves, hydrocephalus related to a pachy meningitis. One must be cautious with transfusions.

[Use of a rating scale in transcultural psychiatry].

The Psychopharmacological Studies Group of Fann, Dakar, considered the cultural expression of mental illness as it would help for a new definition of the nosographic frames, and inside of them, the appreciation of symptoms. This new definition would be applied "universally" if it may be considered that some symptoms are "culture-free" and others deeply marked by the discourse held by the person or by his social group. The use of valuation scales for symptomatic change during a treatment (here anti-depressive one) become harder by the undifferenciation of these two types of symptoms.