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Gastrotonometry conventionally enables the measurement of the partial pressure of carbon-dioxide (pCO2) in the gastric mucosa via the analysis of the filling material of a ballooned probe placed into the stomach. According to the data of the more than a half century long history of the method we may state, that the examination triggered an unusually large interest as well as was applied both in clinical work and in research. Since in the case of good circulatory circumstances the result of the examination is nearly equal to the value of the arterial blood pCO2, in the beginning the method was used for the better setting of ventilators of poliomyelitic patients with respiratory paralysis. Later it was also explored, that in critically ill patients the pCO2 value is significantly higher, than that of the arterial blood value, which difference is the consequence of the disturbance in the regional perfusion of the gastrointestinal system. The attention toward the subject was mainly drawn by the circumstance that the examination of the patient's condition can be judged objectively. Even more important is that gastrotonometry may help in the prediction of a life-threatening event. One of the main purposes of the article was the summarising of the literature on the subject, as well as reviewing the aspects, which should urge clinicians to apply gastrotonometry in a broader range of everyday clinical practice. On the other hand, the authors also give a short description of a new, self-developed balloon-free probe.

The authors report their experience in cases under legal action against medical service needing expert opinion. By the rapid development and differentiation of medical science in the recent years the possibility of making mistake in every day practice increased, on the other hand this circumstance includes also occurrence of the pitfalls in giving expert opinion in legal actions against medical service.

Due to the scientific progress and the rapid changes in social circumstances, medical ethics became a complicated and difficult science. On the basis of fundamental and simple principles of medical ethics (salus aegroti suprema lex) the author tries to take standpoint in questions arisen in his practice in which the medical aspect was not necessarily obvious. It can be ethically faulty when more then necessary is provided to the patients (in prescribing medicine, in welfare, in performing examinations). It is necessary that the steadily increasing medical specialization goes together with the better cooperation between the medical disciplines and with wider distribution of special experience. The system of the medical honorarium should be entirely open and publicly regulated. It is a medical ethical obligation to place the organs of brain death cases suitable for transplantation at the disposal of patients requiring it. In the field of reproduction not the suspicion alone but the undoubtebly proven injury of fetus only can be a sufficient medical indication for the termination of pregnancy. The medical person by his attitude in creating optimal conditions for the perinatal care has to do his best in avoiding any heartlessness, contralily, in promoting willingness in the parents to have children.

In two series of newborns needing intensive care the presence, the degree and the prognostic value of myoglobinaemia was examined. In series I. of hypoxic newborns the myoglobinaemia was present even in infants requiring less than 60% O2 therapy. The serum myoglobin value was significantly higher in cases needing oxygen therapy over 60% oxygen. This was most pronounced in the critically severe and progressive cases. In series II. of 34 consecutive cases of hypoxic newborns exceeding 7 nM/l proved to have a prognostic value indicating critically severe course or fatal outcome of the disease. The myoglobinaemia observed in the present study may explain the effectivity of the peritoneal dialysis therapy introduced previously by us in severe hypoxic newborns. This possibility was supported by further observations on the transperitoneal passage of myoglobin in 4 renal hilus ligated and peritoneally dialyzed newborn piglets. In conclusion, early detection of the elevated myoglobinaemia in severely hypoxic newborns has a definite prognostic value and its degree can be used in the indication of peritoneal dialysis.

Active immunization using Takahashi OKA live attenuated varicella vaccine was carried out fire 5 times to prevent the spread of "imported" varicella in a hospital ward. Susceptibility was previously tested by serological examinations: 14 children were vaccinated subcutaneously, the other 19 received the vaccine intracutaneously. Vaccination within a few days following exposure provided complete immunity in the great majority of cases. Intracutaneous administration was nearly as protective as the subcutaneous one.

A study was made of the reaction of the human umbilical artery and the isolated rabbit auricular artery to protein-free ultrafiltrates of normal and hypoxic sera originating from neonates suffering from RDS or other acute metabolic disturbances. While a normal serum ultrafiltrate caused an enhanced contraction of the umbilical artery, hypoxic sera exerted a weaker pressor activity. At the same time, on the rabbit's isolated auricular artery the hypoxic sera exhibited a higher pressor activity. The phenomenon is in agreement with the clinical observation that spontaneous closure of the umbilical vessels is delayed in the case of fetal hypoxia.

The tone of the ductus arteriosus of the rabbit fetus near term constricted by oxygen (PO2 = 20 kPa) was relaxed reversibly by the drugs chlorpromazine, promethazine, drotaverine, papaverine, diazepam, propanidid, isoxsuprine, pethidine, 5-ethyl-5-(1-methyl-propyl) 2-thiobarbituric acid, and furosemide. Ethyl alcohol, on the other hand, caused constriction of the fetal ductus arteriosus. These drugs if used in obstetrics may disturb the newborn's adaptation to extrauterine life by inhibiting the postnatal closure of the ductus arteriosus. On the other hand, the constrictive effect of alcohol may adversely affect the fetus. The results make it necessary to investigate the effect of the drugs applied during the perinatal period on the adaptation of newborns to extrauterine life.

16 mothers smoking 1-40 cigarettes dialy during pregnancy and their infants were studied at delivery compared to 13 non-smoking controls. The infants of smoking mothers had significantly decreased weight and length at birth compared to the infants of non-smokers. In the smoker group the thiocyanate level in maternal venous and newborn cord blood sera was significantly higher than in the non-smokers. The standard blood oxygen affinity of cord blood was significantly increased in the smokers' group and was positively correlated to the thiocyanate level in cord blood. At the age of three and five days there were no differences in the newborns' capillary blood standard oxygen affinity between the two groups. The deleterious effect of maternal smoking on the fetus and newborn is discussed.