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Traditionally, the body self has been regarded as involved in reality testing principally in the determination of the distinction between the source of a stimulus being internal or external. The body has been closely related to instinctual drives, to urgency, and thus to conflicts that are crucial to normal and pathological development. However, the concept of the body self comprising all the psychic experiencing of body sensation, body functioning, and body image is broader than the body's connection to inner-outer reality testing and id pressures. The findings from childhood observations and from clinical research indicate that at each stage of the child's life, from earliest infancy on, the maturation and development of the body self becomes integrated with the whole group of psychic regulatory activities that contribute to the individual's sense of reality. The development of the body self at each period involves criteria by which some aspect of reality is tested. The subject of this paper has been the developmental pattern of experiences that contribute to the individual's sense of his body in particular and to the sense of reality of the self in general.

The authors submit an analysis of patients operated in 1972-1982 at the First Surgical Clinic, Faculty of General Medicine, Charles University Prague. The group of patients was divided into those under 65 years and those above this age. The effect of the patients' age on the postoperative course was investigated, the survival of the two groups was compared, the causes of early postoperative deaths, the extent of the disease and histological type of tumour were evaluated. In was revealed that the risk of early postoperative death within one month is greater in patients above 65 years where it is 19.6%, as compared with 11.3% in the younger group. The risk increases in particular in patients above 70 years where it is as high as 26%. There is no fundamental difference in the causes of death between the two groups. The highest percentage of operated patients dies from embolism (40% and 42% in the patients above 65 years), the second place is held by inflammatory pulmonary complications which are somewhat more frequent in patients of the younger age group (24% as compared with 15% in the older patients). The survival curves of patients who had a radical operation in stage I and II of the neoplastic disease are almost identical and there is no significant difference in the survival of the two groups. In the group under 65 years 30% survive five years, in the older group 25%. The ratio of differentiated types of lung cancer, i.e. adenocarcinoma and epidermoid carcinoma is equal in both groups, contrary to small-cell carcinoma which was recorded in 6% in the older patients, as compared with 15% in the younger ones.

In his creation of a psychobiography of one genius and the hidden autobiographic analysis of another, Freud exemplifies what he described in the study: "Kindly nature has given the artist the ability to express his most secret mental impulses, which are hidden even from himself, by means of the works that he creates" (p. 107).

The authors present an account on four cases of cardiac myxoma and two cases of a secondary malignant tumour. Despite the low incidence of cardiac tumours this disease must be taken into consideration. The diagnosis was established by echocardiography and angiography. Two-dimensional echocardiography is, however, often sufficient. Early surgical treatment has very favourable results in bening tumours. The prognosis of patients with malignant tumours is very poor and experience with treatment is scanty.

The paper demonstrates on brief case-histories of a small group of patients some possibilities how to use isolated regional perfusion of cytostatics combined with hyperthermia as an adjuvant therapeutic method in case of melanoblastomas and liposarcomas of the extremities.

Unlabelled: Survival rates were determined for a group of 136 patients in whom left ventricular aneurysm was determined by angiography. They were treated medically (99 patients) or surgically (37 patients). Congestive heart failure was predominant in all patients. The two groups did not differ in regard to clinical and haemodynamic data except for a more extensive coronary artery disease in the surgical group. Survival rates at the 5, 7 and 9 years were 62.5%, 52.5% and 37.5% in the medicaly treated group and 50%, 40% and 32.5% in the surgical group. Functional improvement at least one Functional Class NYHA was present in 75% patients postoperatively, and in 27% of patients treated medically., Conclusion: In patients with left ventricular aneurysm with predominant congestive heart failure surgical treatment improved quality of life but did not increase long-term survival.

The paper deals with the problem of surgical treatment of cardiac aneurysms and akinesias from the aspect of indication of surgical tactics and technique, risk factors and achieved results. The group of 117 patients is divided into 74 patients operated in 1970-1982 and 43 patients operated in 1983-1987 when already medium hyperthermia was used permanently, similarly as cold cardioplegia, complete haemodilution, pulsed extracorporeal circulation and relieving drainage of the left ventricle via the pulmonary artery. The reduction of early mortality from 24.3% to 4.7% provides clear evidence of the advantages of this procedure. The authors draw attention to differences in indications of surgical treatment between classical aneurysms and akinesians and to the importance of revascularization operations performed nowadays, using aortocoronary bypasses.