Higher order multiple births: natural wonder or failure of therapy?

Data of 601 families with triplets and higher multiples have been collected. Since about nine years the number of higher-order births has been increasing enormously. The average pregnancy duration and the average birthweight of these mostly premature children have been declining from year to year.

[Tuberculosis of the conjunctiva and eyelids].

A diagnosis of unilateral tuberculosis of the conjunctiva was established in a 75-year-old female patient eight years after the first manifestations of disease. It was clearly a case of exogenous infection. Generalized infection only became apparent months after the bulb had been removed together with the lids and the anterior portions of the orbital tissue.

[Compound Hurler-Scheie disease in 3 siblings].

The present paper describes 3 out of a total of 9 siblings, aged 9, 17, and 18, with the following symptoms: gargoyle-like facial features, clouding of the cornea in both eyes, dysostosis multiplex, slightly impaired intelligence, hepatosplenomegaly, umbilical hernia, and increased secretion of mucopolysaccharides in the urine, in particular dermatan and heparan sulfate. Some of the symptoms are mid-way between those of Hurler's and Scheie's syndromes, both having the same deficiency of the enzyme alpha-1-iduronidase. McKusik developed the theory that the genes responsible for the clinical pictures of Hurler's and Scheie's syndromes are alleles and hence cases such as those described here should be considered as allelomorphic compounds.

Treatment of critical neonatal edema with hemo-ultrafiltration.

Three neonates with extreme edema associated with cardiovascular and renal insufficiency were treated with hemo-ultrafiltration for removal of critical edema fluid. In each patient peritoneal dialysis had not been effective in expedient fluid removal. Ultrafiltration was accomplished by occlusion of the proximal dialysate portal of a Travenol EX12-11, 0.

Congenital hereditary stromal dystrophy of the cornea.

Cornea from patients in two separate pedigrees showing dominant inheritance of a congenital nonprogressvie corneal clouding were examined by light and electron microscopy. The characteristic changes of abnormal corneal lamellae were widely and rather uniformly distributed throughout the stroma. The remaining corneal layers were normal.

[Plastics or glass for children's eyeglasses?].

Up to +5 dpt glass should be used in spectacles for children. There is more protection for the eye than danger of injury. Glasses out of plastic material are scratched very quickly, also they are more expensive.

[Evidence for reduced colour vision in carriers of congenital colour vision deficiencies (author's transl)].

The ability to recognize small spots of coloured light in parafoveal regions of the retina was investigated in women heterozygous for protanopia (2 subjects), deuteranopia (2 subjects), or deuteranomaly (1 subject) and in 3 normal subjects. The homozygous colour normals had excellent discrimination up to 8 degrees excentricity, whereas in heterozygous carriers of congenital colour vision deficiencies the ability to differentiate colours varied from point to point within the retina. The results may be explained by assuming the existence of alternating patches of trichromatic and dichromatic cell populations with the retina of the heterozygous carriers.