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This article compares the results of a 1985 survey of elderly seasonal migrants to the Rio Grande Valley of Texas with those of five earlier studies to provide a more comprehensive profile of such migrants than is currently available. Sociodemographic, life-style, and health characteristics are reviewed. Based on apparent similarities among elderly seasonal migrants in the six studies, suggestions are made for the direction of future research.

Acculturation and assimilation of persons of L Mexican origin in the Southwest has been slowed by various social mechanisms of the larger society which tend to keep these people separate, and by a tendency on their part to separate themselves from the larger community by living in barrios. One result of this sociocultural isolation is the preservation of many folk beliefs of Spanish and Hispanic-American origins. Most important among these from a medical point of view are the prescientific concepts of health and disease and the related practices.Prominent among the disease concepts are mal ojo (evil eye), empacho (surfeit), susto (magical fright), caída de mollera (fallen fontanelle), and mal puesto (hex). Gillin1 gives a detailed account of susto in Guatemalan natives and draws parallels between folk and scientific (psychiatric) therapeutics. The existence of the first three concepts among Spanish-speaking Americans has been described by Saunders.2 Clark's work

Up to 1900, diverticula were almost universally a necropsy finding. Since that time, with the perfection of the cystoscope and methods of cystography, they have been observed rather frequently, and numerous urologists have published articles on the subject, each with a sizable series of case reports with operation. Therefore, it is our intention in this paper to consider certain features only, instead of attempting to put forth a comprehensive study of the diverticulum in all its aspects. The importance of diverticula is emphasized by the fact that a badly infected, poorly draining diverticulum, especially with ammoniacal urine, gives rise to subjective symptoms, namely, dysuria, pain and distress, not exceeded in severity by advanced vesical tuberculosis, carcinoma or stone.It seems to be conceded that, in the vast majority of cases, two etiologic factors are operative: (1) embryologic defects in the bladder—weakened spots—and (2) obstruction (usually at the bladder neck). Our

The importance of vesical diverticulum is emphasized by the fact that badly infected, poorly draining diverticula, with the resulting stagnation and eventual ammoniacal urine, give rise to subjective symptoms not exceeded in severity by those of advanced vesical tuberculosis, carcinoma or calculus.Vesical diverticulum is a form of herniation through points of weakness between muscular fibers interlacing at approximately a right angle. These so-called weakened spots may be due to embryologic defects or, presumably, may result from pathologic changes in the bladder wall produced by infection, inflammatory changes and back pressure. In practically every case there is evidence of increased intravesical pressure over a long period, almost always caused by obstruction at the bladder outlet. With few exceptions prostatism. in one form or another, is present and accounts for the back pressure, without which there would be no diverticulum. The dictum that two factors, weak spots and obstruction, are necessary

Spinal anesthesia is a root anesthesia produced by the injection of some anesthetic agent into the subarachnoid space around the cord, exercising itself mainly on the intraspinal segment of the posterior roots in the region in which the injection is made.Spinal anesthesia was introduced in 1889 by August Bier of Bonn, who used cocaine as his agent. Little headway was made until the discovery of stovaine in 1904, and from that time on spinal anesthesia has suffered in repute from the statements and writings of both its friends and its enemies. Its friends often exaggerate its advantages and minimize its dangers. In the beginning, cocaine used in this way proved highly dangerous—a natural expectation. Stovaine produces excellent anesthesia, but it is a rather toxic drug, and when first introduced into the United States for this purpose the fatalities were just sufficient to brand—not stovaine—but spinal anesthesia as a dangerous