[Comfort after a sad outcome of pregnancy. Two letters of Frederick the Great to Wilhelmina of Prussia].

After her unfortunate experience of parturition Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia, married to stadhouder Prince Willem V, received two letters of comfort from her beloved godfather King Frederick II (Frederick the Great) of Prussia. These letters illustrate the special close connection there was between them. The letters also give a view on the difficult question of giving comfort after perinatal death.

[A farewell to Van Gijn].

Prof. Dr. J.

[The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2007 for the development of 'knockout' technology].

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2007 has been awarded to Mario R. Capecchi (University ofUtah, Salt Lake City, USA), O. Smithies (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA), and Sir Martin J.

[The founding of the 'Vereeniging Nederlandsch Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde' [Society of the Dutch Journal of Medicine] on 28 September 1856].

On Sunday the 28th of September 1856, 150 years ago this year, a meeting was held in Amsterdam at which the 'Nederlandsch Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde' [Dutch Journal of Medicine] was founded. There are strikingly few sources of information on this happening. The 150th volume of the Journal is appearing this year.

[Diseases and the diseased--scientific and alternative medicine].

Exposing alternative medicine as quackery and unscientific is necessary, but one should be aware of the limitations of scientific medicine as far as the care of individual patients is concerned. Medicine is primarily about people, not about science. Current regular medicine uses a rational approach and carries out actions of which the effectiveness has been demonstrated in controlled trials.

[Diagnosis: not more than an agreement on disease entity].

Once a hereditary disorder has been linked to a gene mutation, it is not uncommon to observe that patients with the mutation have a wider range of clinical features than was previously anticipated. This is the case with Friedreich's syndrome, of which the characteristic signs used to be progressive cerebellar ataxia and areflexia, with onset at an early age. Now that the causative mutation has been established, it also appears to be expressed as an 'atypical' disease, with a later onset, piramidal signs at an early stage, and retained tendon jerks.

[Citing electronic sources in scientific articles].

In 1995 a reference to an electronic source of information first appeared in this journal. Such sources are neither permanently available nor unchangeable. Both qualities are of central importance to the progress of scientific knowledge.

['Caring always'; physicians' expression of condolences to the relatives of patients].

According to the WHO definition, palliative care does not end with the death of the patient, but also includes supporting the family members in dealing with the loss. A recent article refers to the importance of physicians writing letters of condolences. The letter of condolences marks the end of the treatment relationship.

[Significance of letters published in the Dutch Journal of Medicine, 1997/98].

Objective: To determine whether in the correspondence section of the Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde (Dutch Journal of Medicine, NTvG) serious criticism is formulated or important mistakes in the original articles are pointed out.

Design: Descriptive, retrospective bibliometric study.

Method: Correspondence in the period July 5, 1997-June 27, 1998 published in the NTvG (n = 196 letters) was scored for 10 items and categorized in categories: 'agree', 'do not agree' (criticizing methods or results or interpretation, or unmotivated criticism) and 'political reaction'.

[Terminologia anatomica: a new reference work for anatomy].

The Nomina anatomica (6th edition in 1989) was the standard anatomical nomenclature until recently. It has been succeeded by the Terminologia anatomica (TA) by resolution of the International Federation of Associations of Anatomists in 1999. By now the TA has been published as a book and on cd-rom.

[Duplicate publication of articles in the Dutch Journal of Medicine in 1996].

Objective: To determine the number of undisclosed/disclosed duplicate publications of original articles (OA) in the Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde (NTvG).

Design: Retrospective bibliometric study.

Method: All biomedical articles published in January 1994-June 1998 and written by the first or second author of the 148 OA published in 1996, were compared with the articles in the NTvG at the editorial office of the NTvG.

[Influence of specific clinical lessons in the Dutch Journal of Medicine on clinical management].

Objective: To establish whether publication of an article propagating a laboratory test leads to measurable increase of the number of requests for that test.

Design: Retrospective.

Method: From volume 138 (1994) of the Dutch Journal of Medicine (NTvG), three clinical lessons were selected that contained an unequivocal clinical message and a recommendation to request a specific laboratory test for particular patients.

[Effects of articles published in the Dutch Journal of Medicine].

Objective: To inventory the effects of publishing in the NTvG.

Design: Retrospective, descriptive.

Methods: The first authors of the articles of the sections Clinical lessons, Capita selecta, For practice, Original articles, Case reports and Side effects of drugs, from the issues 27-53 of Volume 138 (1994) of the NTvG were approached for a written enquiry about the effects of their articles.

What are the factors determining authorship and the order of the authors' names? A study among authors of the Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde (Dutch Journal of Medicine).

Context: Although criteria justifying authorship of scientific medical articles have been formulated, it is not well known how authorship is established in practice.

Objectives: To assess the criteria for authorship used by authors of original articles in Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde (NTVG, the Dutch Journal of Medicine), and to determine whether the criteria for authorship of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) are known and applied.

Design: Survey questionnaire.

[Nobel Prize of Medicine 1997 awarded for prion theory].

The Nobel Prize 1997 for Medicine and Physiology was awarded to S.B. Prusiner, who proposed the prion hypothesis.

[Medical science in the Dutch language].

Medical researchers consider a publication in English to be of a higher standard than one in a local language such as Dutch. An international publication in English is appropriate when the readers addressed belong to an international scientific community, but the mere fact that a publication is in English is no indication of its importance. Research of a national scope and of national consequences should be published in the national native language.

[Editing of articles accepted for publication by the Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde].

The Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde has been publishing medical science in Dutch for 140 years. To bridge the gap between the specialist science and the general medical reader several sections in the accepted papers have to be clarified, simplified and shortened by post acceptance editing. The style and language of the authors is treated with respect.

Readers' evaluation of effect of peer review and editing on quality of articles in the Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde.

Background: Academic biomedical journals use peer review and editing to help to select and improve the quality of articles. We have investigated whether articles accepted by the Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde, the Dutch Journal of Medicine, were improved after peer review and editing (post-acceptance scientific and copy editing).

Methods: 400 readers of the journal (100 each of medical students, recent medical graduates, general practitioners, and specialists) were invited to participate in a questionnaire survey.

Colonization and antibody response in mice and rats experimentally infected with Pasteurellaceae from different rodent species.

Mice and rats were experimentally infected with Pasteurellaceae isolated from mice, rats, hamsters and gerbils. Mice and rats were most heavily colonized by strains originally isolated from mice and rats respectively, and to a lesser extent by Pasteurellaceae from hamsters and gerbils. Colonization was generally accompanied by seroconversion.

[Neospora caninum as a cause of lameness symptoms in young dogs].

At the age of three weeks, two Labrador retriever puppies, out of a litter of nine, suffered from diarrhoea and muscular weakness. One puppy died within two days. The other was killed after a tetraparalysis had developed.