Jewish Hospitals in 20th Century Amsterdam: A Tale of Growth, Change, and Decline.

Major improvements in medical diagnostics and treatments in Dutch hospital care during the second half of the 19th century led to a shift from a nearly exclusive focus on indigent patients to an increasing proportion of hospital beds dedicated to paying middle-class patients. To accommodate this change, three private non-sectarian hospitals for middle-class patients were established in Amsterdam between 1857 and 1902. However, the two Jewish hospitals in the Dutch capital, the Dutch Jewish Ashkenazi hospital (NIZ), and the Portuguese Jewish hospital (PIZ), initially established exclusively for poor Jews, were much slower to respond to the trend of increasing hospital care for the middle class.

The Joles Jewish Hospital: A Short-lived Dutch Small City Hospital With an Unusual Resurrection.

The Joles Jewish Hospital in Haarlem (a small city in the Netherlands) was established in 1930 to provide a Jewish milieu for local patients. Mozes Joles, a wealthy Jewish businessman, bequeathed his fortune to the Haarlem Jewish community to accomplish this objective, and its spiritual leader, Rabbi Simon Philip de Vries, was the driving force in successfully achieving this goal. The Joles Hospital was forcibly closed by the Nazis in 1943, and the postwar leadership of the Haarlem Jewish community decided not to reopen it.

A Tale of Two Nineteenth-century Dutch Jewish Hospitals-One a Success, The Other a Failure.

The development of the modern hospital is usually dated to the nineteenth century. During this time, many municipal and sectarian hospitals were established and developed, and Jewish hospitals were no exception. Such developments also occurred in the Netherlands.

Hospital Care for Jews in Nineteenth-century Amsterdam: The Emergence of the First Jewish Hospitals.

In the early seventeenth century, the Jews formally established two separate communities in Amsterdam, the Portuguese Sephardi and the High German Ashkenazi congregations. Until the end of the eighteenth century, medical care for the Amsterdam indigent Jews had been controlled and regulated by the powerful Parnasim, the de facto rulers, of each community. The primary communal organizations that were exclusively responsible for medical care for the poor were the Bikur Holim societies.

Conjugated linoleic acids and CLA-containing phospholipids inhibit NO formation in aortic endothelial cells.

This study examined the effects of five CLA isomers and the non-conjugated LA on nitric oxide (NO) production, an important modulator of vasodilation, inflammation, and cytotoxicity. Bovine aortic endothelial cells (BAECs) were pretreated with pure CLAs (c9, c11-, c9, t11-, t9, t11-, t10, c12-, c11, c13-CLA) and the non-conjugated c9, c12-analog, then stimulated by the ionophore A23187 followed by fluorescence monitoring of NO production. CLAs (5 microM) decreased NO formation in the range of 20-40% relative to non-fatty acid-treated controls with the t9, t11- and t10, c12-CLAs being the most effective.

9-trans, 11-trans-CLA: antiproliferative and proapoptotic effects on bovine endothelial cells.

Endothelial cell function can be influenced by nutrition, especially dietary FA and antioxidants. One class of dietary FA that is found in meat and dairy products derived from ruminant animals is conjugated linoleic acids (CLA). We have examined the effects of several CLA isomers on endothelial cell proliferation.

Effects of lipid-esterified conjugated linoleic acid isomers on platelet function: evidence for stimulation of platelet phospholipase activity.

The effects of four conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) isomers on in vitro collagen-induced human platelet aggregation and thromboxane (TXB(2), the inactive metabolite of the proaggregatory TXA(2)) production were examined. As the free fatty acid (FFA), 9t, 11t-CLA was the most effective inhibitor of these two processes (I(50)s of 2.2 and 4 microM, respectively) and the 9c, 11c-CLA was the least effective (I(50)s of 8.

Conjugated linoleic acid exhibits stimulatory and inhibitory effects on prostanoid production in human endothelial cells and platelets.

In addition to their reported antitumorigenic properties, various conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) isomers have also been shown to decrease prostanoid synthesis as a result of inhibiting the cyclooxygenase (COX) enzyme. We have previously reported that several CLA isomers inhibited both platelet aggregation and formation of thromboxane A(2) (TXA(2)), a proaggregatory and vasoconstrictive agent. Since the interaction between platelets and vascular endothelial cells is essential to maintaining vascular homeostasis, we decided to investigate the effects of various CLA isomers on the production of endothelial prostacyclin (PGI(2)), a potent vasodilator and inhibitor of platelet function.