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Apligraf consists of bovine collagen dermis seeded with allogeneic male fibroblasts and keratinocytes. It is been shown to promote healing, but the length of persistence and pathological features have not been characterized previously in acute wounds. Forty-eight deep dermal wounds were created and Apligraf, a split-skin graft (SSG), or a dressing was applied. Biopsies of wounds were taken for immunohistochemical analysis and polymerase chain reaction was performed to detect the Y chromosome from Apligraf cells in 14 female wounds. Male allogeneic DNA was detected in wounds for the first 4 weeks. All subsequent time points were negative apart from one biopsy at 6 weeks. The wounds took 4–9 weeks to heal, with the Apligraf exhibiting no features of engraftment. This was in contrast to the rapid healing seen in the SSG control group. Histology revealed a more intense cellular infiltrate, but less vascularization below Apligraf compared with controls. Evidence of an epidermal–mesenchymal interaction was observed. This is the first article to elucidate the survival of Apligraf allogeneic cells in acute wounds in immunocompetent human subjects for up to 6 weeks and demonstrates that in the management of acute surgical wounds, Apligraf has a role only as a temporary biological dressing.

The effect of standardised, Western acupuncture on hay fever symptoms was investigated in a randomised, controlled, single-blind trial in comparison with “sham” acupuncture. Three general practices, in Oxfordshire (rural), Lincolnshire (semi-rural), and Peterborough (urban), recruited 102 patients aged 16 or over with long-standing, moderate or severe hay fever symptoms that had required continuous therapy for at least one month of the year for three or more consecutive years.The patients were asked to keep a diary to record: the amount of medication used daily; a daily symptom score (using a ten-point scale), from which was derived a weekly remission of symptoms score; and their assessment of the effect of acupuncture on the hay fever symptoms. Symptom scores and use of medication were similar in the two groups. In the four-week period following each patient's first treatment, remission of symptoms was reported by 39.0% in the active treatment group and 45.2% in the sham group; mean weekly symptom scores were 18.4 and 17.6 respectively; and mean units of medication used were 4.1 and 5.0 respectively. Sixteen out of 43 patients in the active treatment group and 14 out of 43 in the sham group felt that the acupuncture had had an excellent or very good effect on their hay fever. The treatments were simple, safe, reproducible and perceived as equally effective. Whether this represented an acupuncture effect, a placebo effect, or natural variation in a fluctuating condition, is not clear.

In the play of Aeschylus the problem before the first jury of the Areopagus was this. A man kills his mother at the order of a god, because she killed his father. Can he be held guilty for an act which racial custom demanded and a god sanctioned? And yet, shall matricide go unpunished, or can that man claim to escape from the Erinyes, whose right and duty to avenge a mother is no less certain than a son's right and duty to avenge his father? The jury could not make up their minds: their votes were equally divided. It is hardly easier for us to give a clear answer to the problem which puzzled those Athenians; and we have a further problem which they were spared—what did Aeschylus think? on what grounds did he acquit Orestes? what did he mean by his solution?Editors and critics have answered these questions differently. Sidgwick holds that in the Eumenides‘the stage is lifted from earth to heaven: it is the powers of light, Apollo and Athena, who are active to protect the morally innocent against the powers of darkness, the Erinyes and the shade of Clytaemnestra, who persecute the technically guilty. The lower view, that guilt lies in the deed, is embodied in the pursuing Furies, and here conflicts with the higher view that the innocent heart must be saved…. The gods of light fight with the gods of darkness, and overcome.’ Verrall's explanation is allied to this but more refined. He sees in the play the conflict of two Rights—of justice absolute and inexorable with the relative justice of a civic community—of the lex talioniswith equity; and he sees in the reconcilement of the Eumenides a mysterious identification of Vengeance and Grace.

ChemInform is a weekly Abstracting Service, delivering concise information at a glance that was extracted from about 100 leading journals. To access a ChemInform Abstract of an article which was published elsewhere, please select a “Full Text” option. The original article is trackable via the “References” option.

ChemInform is a weekly Abstracting Service, delivering concise information at a glance that was extracted from about 100 leading journals. To access a ChemInform Abstract of an article which was published elsewhere, please select a “Full Text” option. The original article is trackable via the “References” option.

ChemInform is a weekly Abstracting Service, delivering concise information at a glance that was extracted from about 100 leading journals. To access a ChemInform Abstract of an article which was published elsewhere, please select a “Full Text” option. The original article is trackable via the “References” option.

A REVIEW by Mr. H. G. Wells in NATURE of April 19 contains the following words: “This claim is pressed even more impudently by Mr. Livingstone in his recent ‘Defence of Classical Education.’ He insists that all our sons are to be muddled about with by the teachers of Greek up to at least the opening of the university stage.”