bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Airbags and Children
Authors: Beuf Francesco G. 
Published: December 2021

The article "Effect of Pediatricians' Counseling on Infant Restraint Use," by Reisinger et al (Pediatrics 67: 201, 1981) is an excellent statement of the importance of constantly reminding parents to safely restrain children and infants while they are traveling by automobile. In addition, the authors' recommendation that pediatricians and other child care personnel actively support legislation to promote safer vehicle (including school bus) design and use is an important point.
On one issue, however, I take strong exception to the authors' conclusions; their suggestion that pediatricians support legislation requiring the use of air bags is, in my opinion, incorrect.
Letters to the Editor
Authors: Ferry Peggy C. 
Published: December 2021

I regret that Dr Lazar misinterpreted some of the statements in my paper, and I apologize if my intentions were unclear. My comments referred specifically (as stated) to the value of intervention programs with neurologically handicapped children. I am not opposed to programs for environmentally deprived children. I share Lazar's concern for sensible parental involvement in the development of children; however, I have not seen parents "often" abandon the child with special needs.
Since I stated specifically in the paper that "large- scale, systematic, and scientifically controlled studies with rigorous methodology are sorely needed," I fail to understand Lazar's comment that "my position discourages systematic longitudinal investigation of the effects of education on the physiologically damaged child."
Adolescent Medicine: Subspecialty or Outcast?
Authors: Zack Brian G. 
Published: December 2021

A subspecialty may be conceptualized as a relatively narrowly defined area of practice within a broader field, whose practitioners are expected to possess an expertise in that area significantly beyond that of the well trained generalist. In this sense adolescent medicine, as a subspecialty of pediatrics, has come of age.
In 1972 the American Academy of Pediatrics clearly included the adolescent age group within the boundaries of the responsibility of pediatrics.1 The American Medical Association officially recognized the field as a specialty in 1977.2 Shortly thereafter a Section on Adolescent Medicine was formed within the American Academy of Pediatrics.
In 1980 The Society for Adolescent Medicine published the inaugural issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health Care, the first scholarly journal devoted to the field.
Community Family Day Care: An Intermediate Solution Between Family Care and Institutional Care
Authors: Hoang Thu 
Published: December 2021

In industrialized countries, the increasing participation in the work force of women during their childbearing years is now a well recognized fact.1,2 Choosing substitute care for her young child(ren) is a compelling question for a working mother to answer in relation to current knowledge of the effects of day care,3-6 the parents' feelings,7 the family finances, and the availability of facilities.6
In the United States the three popular forms of substitute care seem to be in-home, family, and institutional care.3-6
A NATIONAL COLLECTION OF MATERIAL RELATED TO THE HISTORY OF PREMATURE INFANT CARE
Authors: Davis Audrey B. 
Published: December 2021

An effort is under way to establish a collection of materials which will trace the development of perinatal-care technology in The National Museum of American History at Smithsonian Institution. Readers of Pediatrics are urged to cooperate in this national effort to locate materials of historical interest in back rooms of hospitals and in private collections.
The material of interest ranges from incubators (Lion-type used in incubatorbaby exhibits to the present-day models), resuscitation and ventilating devices (delivery-room apparatus, Bloxom Air-Lock, rocking bed, respirators ...), feeding items (gavage equipment, nasal spoons, indwelling tubes ...), photographs, hospital records (statistical reports, examples of patient records ...) and equipment used in landmark investigations (calorimetry, oxygen consumption ...).
Letters to the Editor
Authors: MacLean William C. 
Published: December 2021

I was disappointed to see the recent commentary, "The Bowel Cocktail."1 A commentary in Pediatrics carries weight similar to that of an editorial and as such some degree of implied endorsement by the journal. It is Unfortunate to have Pediatrics seeming to endorse a shotgun approach to a common pediatric problem with many etiologies that deserves more thought than the mixing of a cocktail.
The article in the South African Medical Journal2 referenced by the authors in support of their cocktail is an anecdotal report of ten infants, far smaller than the 132 to 218 children referred to in the commentary.
Plant Fiber Intake in the Pediatric Diet
Authors: Walker A. R. P. , Burkitt D. P. 
Published: December 2021

The report of the Committee on Nutrition1 on the above topic, is to be commended for its balanced approach, deliberations, and conclusions.
High fiber diets were consumed ubiquitously by our ancestors of scarce a century ago, and are still consumed by many rural dwellers in Europe, and of course by the huge majority of Third World populations. It is therefore a stinging reflection on the poverty of our nutritional knowledge that uncertainty is still expressed over whether high fiber diets promote mineral deficiencies.
THE BURROW INK TEST FOR SCABIES
Authors: Marcuse Edger K. 
Published: December 2021

In France, the diagnosis of scabies rests upon finding le sillon (a well defined, zigzagged burrow) on an afflicted patient with the aid of a simple fountain pen. This so called Burrow Ink Test (BIT) consists of gently rubbing the scabietic papule with the underside of a fountain pen, covering it with ink. The excess ink is then wiped off with an alcoholsaturated gauze. If a burrow is present the ink will track down it and outline the limits of the canal....
In the United States, the diagnosis of scabies is made by the direct demonstration of the mite, the egg or the scybala (fecal pellets) in the skin....
Although the importance of le sillon ... was emphasized in 1835 by Simon Francois Renucci, the BIT has been passed along from generation to generation of French dermatologists by word of mouth without ... a definitive study.... We attempted to complete the work of Dr. Renucci by comparing the BIT with the superficial shave biopsy to establish its diagnostic validity....
Results. All ... 25 BIT-positive lesions provided material for superficial shave biopsy in which the mites, eggs, fecal pellets or any combination of the three were found.... Stated another way, if a lesion was BIT positive, it was also positive with the superficial shave biopsy.
By contrast, 11 of 30 BIT-negative lesions provided material for a positive superficial shave biopsy.
Discussion. The history of scabies seems to have evolved in a "two steps forward, one and one-half steps backward" fashion.... In 1657, Hauptman observed the mite under the microscope.... Thirty years later ... Bonomo and Cestoni extracted the mite from under the skin, observed it under the microscope and described it as a "small turtle".... Unfortunately, others could not repeat this work.... Lugol (of ... solution fame) ... offered 300 crowns ... to anyone who could demonstrate the mite.
Isopropyl Alcohol Burns
Authors: Weintraub Z. , Iancu T. C. 
Published: December 2021

In their article "Burn Hazard of Isopropyl Alcohol in the Neonate" Schick and Milstein (Pediatrics 68:587, 1981) report two cases of second-degree and third-degree skin burns in premature infants. Both patients were of very low-birth-weight (756 gm at 22 weeks and 850 gm at 25 weeks) and isopropyl alcohol had been used either for conduction on ECG, or preparation of the umbilical stump for arterial catheterization.
We wish to report on four similar cases observed between 1977 and 1979.
Reducing Prescription Costs
Authors: Snodgrass Gary L. 
Published: December 2021

The recent article by Chilton1 is an excellent attempt to increase physician awareness of prescription costs. However, the discussion of "quantity discounting" omits several important points. The following should be carefully considered before accepting the strategy of "prescribing a larger amount of a drug once" to effect cost savings.
1. Although increasing the prescription quantity reduces the cost per unit of medication, the overall prescription price is higher. A patient may call the pharmacy for a price quote and once hearing this larger amount may refuse to have the prescription filled altogether.
Dysmorphology and Adoptions
Authors: Wilkie Ormond L. 
Published: December 2021

I read with interest the letter by Frank et al1 regarding the overrepresentation of adopted children in their dysmorphology clinic population.
The adolescent unit at College Hospital, Cerritos, CA is a treatment center for teenage patients with sociopathic behaviors, ie, truancy, running-away, incorrigibility, stealing, etc. Of the 131 teenagers admitted in 1980 to 1981, 25 (19%) were adopted, most shortly after birth. Of the 25 adopted children, 13 were male and 12 were female. Of the adopted children 20% had an abnormality of the birth process whereas this was noted in 27% of the children that were not adopted.
FRIEDREICH'S ATAXIA
Authors: Copps Stephen C. 
Published: December 2021

The clinical features of 115 patients from 90 families with Friedreich's ataxia are described. Onset of symptoms was before the age of 25 (mean 10.52) years in all the index cases. An analysis of early cases suggested that limb and truncal ataxia and absent tendon reflexes in the legs were the only consistent diagnostic criteria within five years of presentation. Dysarthria, signs of pyramidal tract dysfunction in the legs and loss of joint position and vibration sense are not necessarily present during the first five years of symptoms, but appear to develop eventually in all cases. Scoliosis and ECG evidence of cardiomyopathy were found in over two-thirds of the patients studied; pes cavus, distal amyotrophy, optic atrophy, nystagmus and deafness were all less frequent. The disorder was gradually progressive in all cases. The mean age of losing the ability to walk was 25 years; 95 per cent were chair-bound by the age of 44 years.
About 10 per cent of the patients had diabetes mellitus which was controlled by oral hypoglycaemic drugs in one quarter. Diabetes appeared to be associated with a higher incidence of optic atrophy and deafness. Diabetes also clustered within sibships; the risk of an individual with Friedreich's ataxia developing diabetes if an affected sib has it is over 40 per cent. Similarly, cardiomyopathy ran true within affected members of the same sibship, but there were instances of discordance which suggest that the development of the non-neurological features of Friedreich's ataxia may be controlled by modifying genes rather than heterogeneity of the main gene.
PHYSICIANS RATED HIGHLY IN NEW OPINION SURVEY
Authors:   Student
Published: December 2021

Clergymen and physicians provide more significant contributions to society than other professionals, most Americans believe.
The results of a recent Gallup Poll conducted by the American Institute of Public Opinion showed clergymen and physicians atop a list of 12 professionals rated by respondents to the poll.
The poll also showed that the public perceives that physicians work under the most stress or pressure, and that they enjoy the highest prestige of any of the professions.
Following are the results of the poll:
See table in the PDF file
Factitious Hypoglycemia
Authors: Mayefsky Jay H. , Sarnaik Ashok P. , Postellon Daniel C. 
Published: December 2021

Insulin abuse resulting in hypoglycemia was originally reported in 1947.1,2 However, not until the 1970s was the serum C-peptide level recognized to be a reliable marker of pancreatic β-cell activity.3 Human C-peptide radioimmunoassay has been advocated recently as a useful test in diagnosing insulin-induced factitious hypoglycemia.4,5 This report describes a case of child abuse presenting as hypoglycemic coma secondary to insulin injection. The diagnosis was made by the presence of the pathognomonic triad: hypoglycemia, hyperinsulinemia, and low serum levels of C-peptide.
CASE REPORT
A 2-year-old black boy was brought to the emergency room in an unresponsive state. He was said to be unarousable after his regular afternoon nap.
A General Journal, High Prices, and New Journals
Authors: Lucey Jerold F. 
Published: December 2021

There are now more than 40 pediatric subspecialty publications. Each season a new journal appears, promising to satisfy the needs of its specialized audience. These journals are expensive because they have very small circulations. Subscription fees are usually close to $100 a year.
Libraries are usually charged a double subscription fee and that is beginning to be a problem. The most expensive pediatric journal at this time is Biology of the Neonate at $248 per year! Our own university library spends more than $2,000 a year on subscriptions to 36 pediatric journals. Libraries are caught in the budget squeeze as each year subscription costs increase by 15% as do the total number of journals!
Help Wanted
Authors: Margolis Lewis H. 
Published: December 2021

With a regularity reminiscent of the guillotine in revolutionary France, the monthly unemployment figures pronounce a sentence of hardship for an ever increasing number of American families. Because there are 100 million workers in the labor force, a 1% rise in the rate of unemployment translates into an additional 1 million jobless individuals, but this figure disguises the impact of unemployment on children and families.
How many children will experience the effects of parental unemployment in the coming months? The incidence of unemployment during a year exceeds the prevalence at the time of any given survey, the commonly reported figure.
In Reply: Skinfold Thickness
Authors: Sumners James , Heimler Ruth 
Published: December 2021

We appreciate the critical eyes of Swyer and associates for the detection of our error in units of measurement. On review of our original data (Pediatrics 68:82, 1981), we found that rate of change in skinfold thickness should have been expressed in millimeters per week instead of millimeters per day. This change of units does not, of course, change the results of statistical analysis or conclusions derived.
We look forward to further studies to elucidate the etiology of the phenomenon reported.
Hyperalimentation Laboratory Support
Authors: Rutledge Joe , Miller Larry 
Published: December 2021

The Committee on Nutrition, American Academy of Pediatrics has recently reported on the "Use of Intravenous Fat Emulsions in Pediatric Patients" (Pediatrics 68:738, 1981). The committee recommends restriction of the amount of fat emulsion given infants because of a lack of accurate and appropriate means of monitoring serum fatty acid and triglyceride concentrations. Such is not the case for triglycerides.
The pediatric clinical chemistry laboratory has the ability to measure serum triglyceride concentrations to support hyperalimentation therapeutic monitoring.
In Reply: Epileptics and School Personnel
Authors: Nader Philip R. , Brink Susan G. 
Published: December 2021

Beringer, Biel, Ziegler, and Lai are quite correct in their calculations and conclusions about the low frequency of seizures compared with frequency of asthma attacks as a chronic condition in our population. One seizure episode occurred during the study period. In addition, two children were receiving antiseizure medication on a regular basis, thereby qualifying as maintenance episodes.
The purpose of our study was to identify types of health care problems rather than investigate in depth care issues for specific chronic conditions.
TEACHING STYLE
Authors:   Student
Published: December 2021

Conformity with authority, mastery of knowledge, specialization, adherence to a school of professional work, and emphasis on technique have all been identified . . . as means by which medical students control anxieties generated by the complexity of clinical practice. Therefore the right/wrong teaching attitude probably meets students' expectations more effectively than the attitude of instructors who present alternative views, dwell on controversies, and seem vague and indecisive.
Despite its popularity with students, we believe that authoritarian teaching not only may delay their cognitive development but also may affect their future attitudes towards student and patient education. A physician who has been trained to believe that there is only one legitimate approach to a given clinical situation may become insensitive to complexities in diagnosis, treatment, and patient relations. He may be less able to tolerate questions from his patients and students and may consider any inquiry into his decisions a threat to his authority. His response to criticism, whether real or imagined, may be "I disagree with you, and therefore you are wrong," rather than "I disagree, but you may be right." Indeed, some physicians show impatience and even hostility when patients do not comply with their orders, when they seek a second medical opinion, or even when they ask for further information about their diseases.
PARAMETER
Authors:   Student
Published: December 2021

Parameter is currently a very popular word, particularly among bureaucrats. I think it's generally used as a mispronunciation of "perimeter." A typical sentence from, say, a TV interview might go, "We've bent every effort to incorporate those subfunctions within the parameters of our organizational structure." As perimeter, that might make sense, perimeters being boundaries. I was puzzled as to why so many bureaucrats had decided to pronounce perimeter as parameter. I wondered if perhaps parameter meant nearly the same thing. Maybe a parameter was like a perimeter only better. I looked it up. Webster's New International, third edition:
pa·ram·e·ter. . . 1: the relative intercept made by a plane on a crystollographic axis, the ratio of the intercepts determining the position of the plane 2a: an arbitrary constant characterizing by each of its particular values some particular member of a system (as of expressions, curves, surfaces, functions) &lt; a ∼ is a quantity which may have various values each fixed within the limits of a stated case or discussion—T. F. Weldon &gt; specif: a quantity that describes a statistical population &lt; a clear distinction should always be drawn between ∼s and estimates, i.e., between quantities which characterize the universe, and estimates of these quantities calculated from observations—Statistical Methods in Research & Production &gt; &lt; estimation of the values of the ∼s which enter into the equation representing the chosen relation—Frank Yates &gt; b: an independent variable through functions of which other functions may be expressed &lt; four ∼s are necessary to determine an event, namely the three which determine its position and the one which determines its time—P. W. Bridgman &gt;
Malacoplakia of the Retroperitoneum in a Girl with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus
Authors: Hamdan Jahed A. , Ahmad Mohammed S. , Sa'adi Abdel Rahman 
Published: December 2021

Malacoplakia is a rare chronic inflammatory disease, usually involving the bladder but occasionally affecting other organs. However, only two cases of malacoplakia of the retroperitoneum and ureter have been reported in the English language literature.1,2 Herein, we describe the third case of malacoplakia of the retroperitoneum and ureter in a patient with systemic lupus erythematosus who had been receiving prednisone therapy for two years. Modification by the steroid of phagocytosis and of the normal inflammatory response to bacterial infection, and the systemic lupus erythematosus, may have been of major importance in the genesis of malacoplakia in this patient.
CASE REPORT
Prenatal Alcohol Eftect Disputed
Authors: Miller Marvin 
Published: December 2021

The conclusion of the article "Developmental language disability as a consequence of prenatal exposure to ethanol" by Shaywitz et al (Pediatrics 68:850, 1981), based on the two reported cases, is misleading and probably erroneous.
First, the authors have misinterpreted their raw, numerical, growth data. Using the same standard growth curves that they did,1 I find that the 118-cm height of S.E. (case 1) at 410/12 years of age is not 50th percentile as they state, but greater than the 97th percentile, and his weight of 20 kg is not 50th percentile as they state, but 75th percentile.
THUNDER BREAKS THE GLUE
Authors:   Student
Published: December 2021

Graduate students, scientists and other researchers may find theory construction a rather complicated business. But first and second-graders seem to come up with explanatory answers to account for events with astonishing ease.
Some "instant theories" concocted by six and seven-year-olds to answer questions have been collected by Alice Morgan and appear in her book, If You Ask Me ...! (Troy University Press; Troy, Alabama, 1978). Here is a sample:
What are clouds?
"Soft cotton glued together."
Why are there clouds?
"Rain is in the middle."
How does it get out?
"Thunder breaks the glue."
We may wonder how long it will take this budding, young theorist to discover that giving answers is only part of the work? That an equally demanding or even greater task may involve arriving at the questions.
But let's not ask the fourth grade, San Francisco student who paused at his school's display of a sample barnyard—with a live cow, two calves, a pig, lamb and chickens—and asked, "How do pigs lay bacon?"
BOREDOM
Authors:   Student
Published: December 2021

Boredom kills, and those it does not kill, it cripples, and those it does not cripple, it bleeds like a leech, leaving its victims pale, insipid and brooding. Examples abound...
Television, the one-eyed beast blamed for scourges ranging from immorality to declining college-admission test scores, has probably helped bring home boredom to America. It has done so by offering us a splendidly wrongheaded view of how one goes about living the good life...
Boredom, at the very least, helps breed some of America's uglier social trends. The rate of teenage suicide has more than tripled in the United States since 1955, and psychiatrists across the country lay part of the blame to boredom born of unrealistic expectations and frustration. Divorce condemns nearly half of all marriages, and marriage counselors report boredom as a major cause. Drug and alcohol abuse—which has increased more rapidly in the past decade among middle and upper-class teenagers than among the less wealthy—is caused, in part, by the need to kill time.
Breast Milk and Fluoride
Authors: Leparulo Yolanda A. 
Published: December 2021

It is recommended that full fluoride dosage (0.25 mg/day) be given to babies that are completely breast-fed (regardless of local water fluoride content) because significant amounts are not passed in breast milk. However, if the infant drinks "some" fluoridated water how much is significant to affect the safety of exogenous fluoride dosage?
I have not seen this question referred to in the literature. Calculations are shown in the Table.
See table in the PDF file
Based on these calculations, if an infants drinks approximately 8 oz per day of 1 ppm of water, no fluoride should be used.
Letter to the Editor
Authors: Silverman William A. 
Published: December 2021

The Denver group is to be congratulated for making a start in efforts to respond to the needs of families who wish their malformed or extremely premature infants to die humanely. And it is reassuring to read that "staff members find their involvement extremely gratifying and rewarding."
I suggest that they have a strong obligation to demonstrate that their "managed" approach1 is "gratifying and rewarding" to all (or even most) families who must go through this harrowing crisis in their lives.