Pandemics in ancient Greek and Roman coinage: medical memories at the service of hope.

Medical goddesses and gods invoked in the Hippocratic Oath were called on in times of pandemics along with Greek physicians such as Galen of Pergamum. Ancient Greek and Roman coinage provide insights into the coexisting religious and rational approaches to medicine rooted in Classical Antiquity, portraying medical symbols and gestures akin to contemporary medicine.

Impact of ABVD chemotherapy on ovarian reserve after fertility preservation in reproductive-aged women with Hodgkin lymphoma.

Research Question: How is ovarian reserve affected by chemotherapy in patients with Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) who undergo fertility preservation (FP)?

Methods: A retrospective study was conducted by reviewing medical records of 105 HL patients referred to the FP unit before starting adriamycin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine (ABVD) chemotherapy. Ovarian reserve was evaluated before chemotherapy and at the last follow-up using anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) and antral follicle count (AFC) measurements. The decrease in AMH was compared with that expected from normograms.

Oocyte vitrification versus ovarian cortex transplantation in fertility preservation for adult women undergoing gonadotoxic treatments: a prospective cohort study.

Objective: To compare the efficacy of oocyte vitrification (OV) with that of ovarian cortex cryopreservation and transplantation (OCT) in women undergoing gonadotoxic treatments.

Design: Prospective observational cohort study.

Setting: Not applicable.

Impact and implementation of a sustainable regional telestroke network.

Background: Telestroke uses videoconferencing technology to allow off-site experts to provide stroke thrombolysis decision support to less experienced front line clinicians.

Aim: To assess the impact of a new telestroke service on thrombolysis rates and door-to-needle times in participating provincial hospitals and service resources to aid transition to a sustainable telestroke service.

Methods: This is a sequential comparison of 'pre' (December 2015 to May 2016) and 'post' (June 2016 to December 2016) implementation outcomes.

EpiNet as a way of involving more physicians and patients in epilepsy research: Validation study and accreditation process.

Objective: EpiNet was established to encourage epilepsy research. EpiNet is used for multicenter cohort studies and investigator-led trials. Physicians must be accredited to recruit patients into trials.

International Telestroke: The First Five Cases.

Telestroke services can improve access to stroke thrombolysis. To address challenges of night time coverage we explored the feasibility of an international telestroke service between Scotland and New Zealand taking advantage of international time zone differences. After addressing medico-legal, governance, and technical issues we tested this international service model and here we present the first 5 cases.

Assessment of the implantation of day-2 human embryos by morphometric nonsubjective parameters.

Objective: To demonstrate the usefulness of image analysis in designing objective embryonic morphometric variables.

Design: Retrospective study of 214 top-quality day-2 embryo photographs from 50 double-embryo transfers resulting in no pregnancy (group 0) and 57 resulting in twin pregnancy (group 1).

Setting: Human reproduction unit.

Tomas Tranströmer's stroke of genius: language but no words.

In 1990, the widely acclaimed Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer lost his speech and the ability to use his right hand as a result of a stroke. As if anticipating his own fate, in 1974, he referred in his longest poem Baltics the story of the Russian composer Vissarion Shebalin who suffered the same symptoms as Tranströmer following a brain bleed: "Then, cerebral hemorrhage: paralysis on the right side with aphasia." An amateur pianist himself, Tranströmer carried on playing left-handed piano pieces after the stroke.

Epilepsy in Dostoevsky.

Fyodor M. Dostoevsky (Moscow, 1821-Saint Petersburg, 1881) suffered epilepsy throughout his whole literary career. The aim here is to understand his condition in light of his novels, correspondence, and his contemporaries' accounts as well as through the eyes of later generations of neurologists.

Tomas Tranströmer's stroke of genius.

This column explores the links and synergies between medicine and literature. What roles can literature play in reflecting and influencing good practice, and what sorts of images of doctoring are to be found in drama, poetry, fiction, biography, electronic fora and film? The editors would be pleased to receive short papers, ranging from 500–1,000 words, on relevant topics. Those interested in contributing should email brian.

On the origin of Ammon's horn.

Introduction: Greek and Roman worship of their gods and myths go back to Ancient Egyptian times. Images engraved in Greco-Roman coinage range from references to the assassination of Caesar and legendary stories like the arrival of a snake shaped demi-god Aesculapius to save the Romans from the plague, to invocations of major deities including Apollo the physician or Ammon the protector.

Development: Depicted with the horns of a ram, Ammon was adopted by the Greeks as an epithet of Zeus and later incorporated by the Romans as Jupiter.

Epilepsy in the process of artistic creation of Dostoevsky.

Introduction: Fyodor M. Dostoevsky (Moscow, 1821-Saint Petersburg, 1881) suffered epilepsy throughout his full literary career. The aim here is to understand his condition in light of his novels, correspondence and his contemporaries' accounts as well as by later generations of neurologists.

Neurology and literature 2.

Introduction: Good literary fiction has the potential to move us, extend our sense of life, transform our prospective views and help us in the face of adversity. A neurological disorder is likely to be the most challenging experience a human being may have to confront in a lifetime. As such, literary recreations of illnesses have a doubly powerful effect.

John Hughlings Jackson and our understanding of the epilepsies 100 years on.

The term Jacksonian epilepsy was coined by Jean Martin Charcot following John Hughlings Jackson's 1870 paper 'A study of convulsions', where he had defined a convulsion as "a symptom resulting from an occasional, an excessive and a disorderly discharge of nerve tissue on muscles". His earlier writings had included cases of syphilis related epilepsy, and the introduction of the first successful antiepileptic drugs-the bromides. Based on careful clinical observation or, as Hughlings Jackson himself put it, on the "experiments performed by disease", 'A study of convulsions' was a synthesis of those previous reports which has contributed to our practical understanding of epilepsy, a contribution which continues to inform our thinking to the present day.

[Neurology and literature].

Introduction: Literature complements medical literature in the academic and clinical development of neurologists. The present article explores the contributions of writers of fiction on neurology.

Sources: Literary works of fiction with particular reference to neurology.

Transient loss of consciousness with convulsions in two young adults with potentially fatal underlying heart disease: syncope versus seizures.

The differential diagnosis of syncope versus seizures represents a daily challenge for cardiologists and neurologists. Long Q-T syndrome and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) are two hereditary arrhythmogenic heart conditions causing syncope in early adulthood. We report the cases of two patients who were reassessed for transient loss of consciousness (TLOC) with convulsions despite treatment.

Congenital gingival hyperplasia in a neonate with foetal valproate syndrome.

There are several causes of gingival hyperplasia and one of the most well-known is drug-induced gingival enlargement. Nevertheless, causes of congenital gingival enlargement include only hereditary and metabolic disorders. Only one case of drug-induced congenital gingival hyperplasia has been reported.