David Crosby

Tumour inoculation during laparoscopy

ous infusion over 30 60 min. Treatment was uncomplicated, besides mild urticaria after the fourth dose, which quickly responded to antihistamines. There was temporary, subjective improvement after antibody therapy but the liver and spleen size did not change and the patient remained transfusiondependent. Over the next 3 months, she was treated with corticosteroids and cyclosporin; serum albumin and blood

A mathematical model of an integrated haemodialysis and renal transplantation programme.

A mathematical model of an integrated renal dialysis and transplantation programme is described. The three treatment areas—hospital dialysis, home dialysis, and transplantation—are represented in the model by three states and those states are subdivided into one and two substates respectively. Interstate transitions occur at either constant average rate or with constant average probability, depending on the relevant principal constraints. In estimating future numbers in the programme, interstate transition probabilities (or rates) may be adjusted for possible changes, such as an improvement in graft survival. Projection based on data of the early years of the Cardiff unit are compared with developments in later years. The model may be used for the calculation of future numbers in other centres or nationally by substituting the appropriate interstate transition probabilities or rates.

Ward rounds ain't what they used to be

My first experience of ward rounds was as a first year clinical student in 1950. The professorial parade occurred on two afternoons a week, and, with the professors known wartime naval career, there was a background of naval terminology, such as the ward being unofficially known as the quarterdeck. The professors retinue of assistants, lecturers, house surgeons, and many others was so large that, by the time he had reached the second bed in the clockwise circuit of the Nightingale ward, the last of us were still coming in through the ward doors. After that the ward …

What am I doing here

In our separate ways, we and Professor Harold Scarborough started at the Welsh National School of Medicine in the early 1950s—he as professor of medicine, and we as first year clinical medical students. As the coauthor of a standard textbook of physiology (Bell, Davidson, and Scarborough), his name was already well known. From the outset, he introduced a clear break from the didactic nature of teaching to which we were …

How my tonsils were saved

In 1937 I was a 7 year old schoolboy. One day the teacher moved me to sit at the front of the class, because, she said, I was deaf. I have no memory of deafness and in retrospect am reasonably certain that this was a misdiagnosis of my affectation of deafness in response to orders that I did not wish to obey. The matter was …