The Purley train crash mechanism: injuries and prevention.

On the afternoon of Saturday 4th March 1989 two trains, both bound for London Victoria Station, collided. Part of the rear train rolled down a steep railway embankment and jack-knifed against a tree. The mechanism of the crash and the injuries sustained by the 55 victims who were seen in the A&E Department of the Mayday University Hospital are described.

Plant hair dermatitis.

Objective: To survey the ill effects of plant hairs on humans in Australia, incorporating new records.

Design: Retrospective analysis of new records, in some cases confirmed and supplemented by experimental skin contacts, along with a general survey of relevant literature.

Methods: Reports of accidental injuries submitted to the authors, through either medical or other sources, and to the Botanic Gardens of Adelaide and State Herbarium of South Australia, were studied and compared with existing literature; in some cases the effects were confirmed experimentally.

Injuries from larval Neuroptera.

Bites from larval Neuroptera (lacewings) in Australia are recorded. This order of insects is among the most primitive of the higher or holometabolous insects, those with a life-history of complete metamorphoses--namely, from egg to larva to pupa to adult. The mobile instars (larva and adult) live by predation.

Injuries from Coleoptera.

The effects of Coleoptera (beetles) on humans in the Australian region are surveyed. Ill-effects range from the immediate trauma of a bite, possibly with minor effects from the beetle's salivary secretions, to the effects of the vesicating beetles of the families Meloidae, Oedemeridae and Staphylinidae, and also the acute corneal erosion that is attributed to the small beetle Orthoperus sp. (family Corylophidae) in southeastern Australia.

Effects of stings of Australian native bees.

Five cases of stings by native bees are reported. The reactions were various and include a fatality as a result of the sting of a presumed Lasioglossum sp. (Halictidae).

Conservative surgery for ureteric tumours.

Eleven patients with ureteric transitional cell tumours were reviewed and conservative management recommended.

Successful Whipple's operation for pancreatic injury.

A case is presented of severe pancreatic injury in a 30-year-old man following a road traffic accident. A Whipple's operation was performed successfully. Despite some postoperative complications, the patient is well and back at work 1 year after the operation.

Control of severe vesical haemorrhage by therapeutic embolisation.

Therapeutic embolisation is now recognised as having a role in the management of bladder haemorrhage and is particularly valuable in severe cases where the patient's life is at risk. This paper describes the procedures which were used to manage two patients with massive haematuria, from a tumour in one case and from an arterial malformation in the other. Previous reports indicate that haemorrhage from a bladder tumour can usually be controlled by embolisation which is limited to the tumour itself but haemorrhage due to post-radiation telangiectasis requires more extensive arterial occlusion and this was taken into account in planning the embolisation procedure in the first case.

Non-union of carpal scaphoid fractures in children.

Fracture of the carpal scaphoid is uncommon in children, but does occur and may fail to unite. Eight patients with established non-union have been reiewed, with an average follow-up of almost four years. All non-unions were grafted with autogenous bone.

Spiders of the genus Loxosceles in Australia.

A previous report of the presence of loxoscelid spiders in Australia is confirmed by a further finding of Loxosceles rufescens at a second suburban locality in Adelaide, South Australia. There is thus a third genus of potentially lethal spiders in Australia.

The neurologic effects of noxious marine creatures.

The concept of the sea as a source of noxious agents is perhaps not a familiar one to clinical neurologists, judging by the lack of reference to these agents in standard textbooks. Chemical, physiologic, and pharmacologic laboratories are increasingly investigating the properties of marine toxins, finding in them compounds with interesting and novel structures or unusual physiologic effects. Such substances are seen as possible agents for biologic and, more particularly, physiologic research, and as possible sources of new pharmaceuticals.