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During a three year period 1970--1973 necropsies were performed on 200 patients who died in a mental hospital in the Transvaal, South Africa. There was no selection of cases other than availability of consent for postmortem examination. The necropsy rate for this period was 56%. The patients belonged to three racial groups, Black, White, and Coloured, the latter being defined as those of mixed blood. Among these 200 cases, 27 were found at necropsy to have an intracranial space-occupying mass. Mention is made of the literature dealing with the incidence and diagnosis of intracranial space-occupying masses in mental hospital patients, and the incidence of intracranial space-occupying masses in the different racial groups in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Two NNW-striking dykes in western South Africa were thought to be part of the c. 132 Ma Parana – Etendeka Large Igneous Province. • The Namaqualand-Garies dykes instead give U/Pb ages of 487 ± 8 Ma & 482 ± 7 Ma. The ages overlap with the end of the Cambrian period. • The geochemistry of the two dykes are distinct from one another indicating different magma batches and processes. Western South Africa between Cape Town and the Namibian border hosts many dyke swarms that strike broadly to the NW and NNW, towards the reconstructed plume-centre of the c. 130 Ma Parana-Etendeka Large Igneous Province (LIP) but are undated. U-Pb ID-TIMS age determinations on baddeleyite from two NNW-striking dykes (~100 km long) parallel to the Namaqualand coast yield 487 ± 8 Ma and 482 ± 7 Ma as age determinations. These results demonstrate that these two dykes represent a magmatic event independent of, and significantly older than the Parana-Etendeka LIP with which they had previously been correlated. Major and trace element compositions are uniform along-these two dykes but distinct from each other; each is inferred to be fed by different magma batches. The inland Garies dyke has the stronger asthenospheric signature, comparable to E-MORBs, while the Namaqualand dyke has a lithospheric overprint, which could have been derived from a metasomatised sub-continental lithospheric mantle and/or assimilation of upper continental crust. The magmatism coincides with a tectonic shift from the compressional Pan-African Saldania-Gariep orogeny to a pull-apart rift system hosting Klipheuwel-Piekenierskloof deposits. This magmatism could potentially be the remnant of a hitherto unrecognized LIP. Within uncertainty, the 485 Ma timing overlaps with the end of the Cambrian period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over a 3-year period a total of 200 autopsies were performed on mental patients who died at Sterkfontein Hospital. Examination of the clinical history was made in each case. The main findings are described and discussed.

The incidence of primary ocular malignant melanoma in blacks during the last 25 years in a large part of the Transvaal Province of South Africa is reported. Only 8 cases were diagnosed, 1 uveal, 4 conjunctival, and 3 orbital. During this same period 153 cases of primary ocular malignant melanoma were diagnosed in whites. The rarity of these tumours among blacks is stressed and the reasons for this infrequent incidence discussed.