Bacterial resistance to penicillins and cephalosporins

1971 ◽  
Vol 179 (1057) ◽  
pp. 403-410 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Bacterial Resistance ◽  
Inhibitory Concentration ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Antibiotic Resistant ◽  
The Past ◽  
Thirtieth Anniversary ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Resistant Strains ◽  
Points Of View

The subject of bacterial resistance to penicillins and cephalosporins could be discussed from a number of points of view and clearly it is not possible in the time available to review adequately every aspect. Some selection is necessary and bearing in mind that the Symposium commemorates the thirtieth anniversary of the introduction of penicillin into medicine it seemed to me that it would be appropriate to consider primarily the changes which have taken place over this period in the incidence of resistance and the knowledge which has been gained concerning the nature of resistance to this family of antibiotics. Before we look at what the changes in resistance have been, however, it may be useful to consider what one means by the word resistant, and in fact one uses the word in two rather different ways. Used in one sense the term applies to those species of bacteria which are characteristically insensitive to penicillin, for example one may say that Pseudomonas aeruginosa is resistant to benzylpenicillin, because this is a characteristic of the species. On the other hand, the term resistant is also applied to particular strains of species of bacteria which are typically penicillin sensitive, or at least were typically sensitive at the time penicillin was first introduced into medicine, for example penicillin-resistant strains of staphylococci and penicillinresistant gonococci. As a result of these two uses of the word resistant some anomalies appear to arise. For example, strains of Escherichia coli inhibited by ampicillin at a concentration of 2 μg/ml would certainly be considered sensitive, whereas strains of gonococci inhibited by one-tenth of this concentration would be regarded as resistant and this is because typical sensitive strains are inhibited by even lower levels. Again, strains of P s . aeruginosa requiring for inhibition a concentration of gentamicin of 10 μg/ml would be said to be resistant, but strains inhibited by carbenicillin at a level as high as 50 μg/ml are considered sensitive. Here the reason is toxicity: a level of 10 μg/ml of gentamicin could not safely be maintained in the body, whereas a level of 50 μg/ml carbenicillin can. Clearly there are two criteria for judging organisms to be resistant, one is that the concentration of drug required to inhibit growth is a level which cannot readily be achieved at the site of infection and the other is simply that the minimum inhibitory concentration is significantly higher than that of the majority of strains of that particular species. Resistance to penicillins and cephalosporins, as with other antibiotics, may arise in bacteria in one of two ways. Resistance may occur as a result of chromosomal mutation or it may arise as a result of the transfer of genetic information from a resistant bacterial cell to a sensitive cell and this transfer may take place by transformation or by conjugation or by the phage mediated process of transduction. Resistant strains, once they arise, may be at a selectional advantage when the drug is used and as a result they may become more prevalent. The frequency at which antibiotic resistant strains arise, and the rate at which they subsequently increase in numbers, varies greatly with different antibiotics and different pathogens and some of the changes in bacterial resistance to penicillins which have occurred over the past 30 years are shown in diagrammatic form in figure 1.

scholarly journals “I am she who does not speak about herself”: The Impersonal Autobiography

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 72-89
Author(s):  
Valérie Baisnée
Keyword(s):  
Production System ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
First Person ◽  
Capitalist Production ◽  
The Past ◽  
Person Pronoun ◽  
The Subject

This article examines how some contemporary autobiographies avoid narratives told from a first person viewpoint. Rejecting a philosophy of the subject that favors the first person pronoun over the other persons in language, Annie Ernaux’s impersonal autobiography The Years (2008) favors a mode of remembering that is collective rather than individual. But the narrator’s memories fall prey to a capitalist production system that denies the body while technology takes over the past, eliminating the subject as the owner of her memories.

scholarly journals I. On the colouring and extractive matters of urine. —Part. I

1868 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 73-125
Keyword(s):  
Hippuric Acid ◽  
Chemical Nature ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Previous Knowledge ◽  
Chemical Examination ◽  
Chemical Reagents ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Subject

Of all the animal secretions urine is undoubtedly one of the most important. Its varying properties, in health as well as in disease, the frequency with which it is emitted, and the consequent facility with which it may be submitted to examination, render it invaluable to the physiolo­gist and pathologist as a means of throwing light on the processes, either healthy or morbid, going on within the body. Its study has therefore engaged the attention of physicians since the earliest times, and of chemists from the period when chemical analysis was first employed in the exami­nation of natural objects. Notwithstanding the labour bestowed on the subject by many eminent men during the past sixty years, it is still, how­ever, far from being exhausted. There are, indeed, portions of the chemistry of urine concerning which our ignorance is .almost complete. It is one of these obscurer parts of the subject that I have endeavoured to clear up, and I hope to succeed in showing that I have added at least a few facts to the sum of our previous knowledge. Of all the properties of urine none is more obvious, even to the ordinary observer, than its colour. The variations in tint which it exhibits at different times are striking, even to the unpractised eye, and they some­ times serve as important indications to the physician. Nevertheless con­cerning the chemical nature of the substances to which its colour is due very little is known. Our ignorance on this subject may be ascribed to various causes. In the first place, some of these substances occur in the urine only occasionally, and in very minute quantities, so that the prepa­ration of a quantity sufficient for chemical examination becomes difficult and even impossible, especially when the urine containing them is not abundant. Secondly, it has been found that some of them are very easily decomposed, so much so that the mere heat required for the evaporation of the urine seems to be sufficient to effect a change in their properties and composition. It therefore becomes doubtful, after a long process has been gone through for the purpose of separating any colouring-matter from the other constituents of the urine (a process in which, perhaps, strong chemical reagents have been employed), whether the substance procured was originally contained as such in the urine, or is not rather a product resulting from the decomposition of some other substance or substances. Thirdly, several of the bodies colouring the urine possess very few charac­teristic properties. They are amorphous and syrup-like, and they retain water with so much pertinacity that on attempting to dry them they undergo decomposition. Neither their compounds nor their products of decomposition exhibit any distinguishing characteristics. They belong to a class on which, for want of a better, the name extractive matter has been conferred. With some chemists, to call a body an extractive matter is to place it among a class which is held to he unworthy of minute examina­tion. To others the name extractive matter is merely a convenient word for a mixture, sometimes occurring in nature, of certain definite, perhaps even crystallized substances, which, by appropriate means, may be resolved into its constituents, and thus be made to disappear entirely from the list of definite chemical bodies. As regards the extractive matter of urine, this view may to some extent be justified, when we recollect that from what was considered to be extractive matter sixty years ago, such well-character­ized substances as urea, hippuric acid, and creatine have been successively eliminated; and it is therefore natural to expect that by further research it will be found to contain others of the same nature. I believe this view to be erroneous; and I shall succeed, I hope, in showing that, after having removed from the extractive matter of unne everything which can assume a definite form, there remains a residuum which cannot be further resolved without decomposition. Still, any one holding this view is not likely to undertake the investigation of extractive matters as such, unless it be for the purpose of obtaining something which may be supposed to be contained in them. Lastly, the properties of these colouring and extractive matters, however important they may be to the physiologist and pathologist, pre­sent so little that is interesting to the chemist, that the latter would pro­bably not occupy himself with their examination unless for some particular purpose. For myself, I frankly confess that, had I not had a special object in view, this investigation would not have been undertaken. The information for the sake of which it was commenced having been obtained, I should then have abandoned all further inquiry, had I not found reason to suppose, in the course of my experiments, that a more extended investigation would lead to results interesting from a physiological point of view. My endeavours have, I think, been attended with some measure of success; and should physiologists, on becoming acquainted with the results, be of the same opinion, my labour will not have been quite in vain.

scholarly journals Kontrowersje wokół wystawy „Wymuszone drogi” na tle sporu o wypędzenia. Analiza debaty prasowej

2009 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 17-43
Author(s):  
Paweł Ciołkiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Post War

The fact that controversies about the past become the subject of public debate testifies to the growing significance of the role of collective memory. In Poland two such controversies emerged recently. The first was triggered off by Jan Tomasz Gross’s book Neighbours that describes the murder committed during the war on Jews by the Polish inhabitants of Jedwabne; the other is a consequence of the actions taken up by the head of the Union of the Expelled, Erika Steinbach, and her many years’ endeavours to create the so-called Centre Against Expulsions in Germany. The matter of post-war “expulsions” divided Polish disputants into adherents of two opposed points of view. One thread of the debate that started in 2000 embraces controversies around the exhibition: “Enforced Roads. Escapes and Expulsions in 20th Century Europe” opened in August 2006 that commemorates the victims of expulsions. The article analyses the press debate around this exhibition in the context of the earlier stages of this controversy. It also describes the changes of relations between the main standpoints and their influence on the ideas of the past.

TARP DVIEJŲ KOLONŲ: XVIII A. PABAIGOS – XIX A. PRADŽIOS VILNIAUS MASONŲ KASDIENYBĖ SIMBOLIKOJE

2018 ◽  
pp. 144-163
Author(s):  
Daiva Milinkevičiūtė
Keyword(s):  
Daily Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Daily Routine ◽  
The Past ◽  
Secular World ◽  
National Characteristics ◽  
Conservative Christian ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Craft Guilds

The Age of Enlightenment is defined as the period when the universal ideas of progress, deism, humanism, naturalism and others were materialized and became a golden age for freemasons. It is wrong to assume that old and conservative Christian ideas were rejected. Conversely, freemasons put them into new general shapes and expressed them with the help of symbols in their daily routine. Symbols of freemasons had close ties with the past and gave them, on the one hand, a visible instrument, such as rituals and ideas to sense the transcendental, and on the other, intense gnostic aspirations. Freemasons put in a great amount of effort to improve themselves and to create their identity with the help of myths and symbols. It traces its origins to the biblical builders of King Solomon’s Temple, the posterity of the Templar Knights, and associations of the medieval craft guilds, which were also symbolical and became their link not only to each other but also to the secular world. In this work we analysed codified masonic symbols used in their rituals. The subject of our research is the universal Masonic idea and its aspects through the symbols in the daily life of the freemasons in Vilnius. Thanks to freemasons’ signets, we could find continuity, reception, and transformation of universal masonic ideas in the Lithuanian freemasonry and national characteristics of lodges. Taking everything into account, our article shows how the universal idea of freemasonry spread among Lithuanian freemasonry, and which forms and meanings it incorporated in its symbols. The objective of this research is to find a universal Masonic idea throughout their visual and oral symbols and see its impact on the daily life of the masons in Vilnius. Keywords: Freemasonry, Bible, lodge, symbols, rituals, freemasons’ signets.

Discussion of “Methodology Used to Calculate Naval Compensated Gross Tonnage Factors” by John Craggs, Damien Bloor, Brian Tanner, and Hamish Bullen

2003 ◽  
Vol 19 (01) ◽  
pp. 29-30
Author(s):  
Thomas Lamb
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
The Past ◽  
Royal Institution ◽  
Naval Ship ◽  
The Subject

I have been working in this area for the past 9 years. As the Craggs et al paper states, I have presented a number of papers on the subject (Lamb 1998, Lamb 2002, Lamb & Hellesoy 2001, Lamb & Knowles 1999, Storch et al 1995). The Craggs et al paper is the second publication I have seen by others about naval ship compensation coefficients. The other was Brian Tanner's paper presented at the Royal Institution of Naval Architects meeting last year describing how the British Ministry of Defence with First Marine International has been working on this matter for the past 2 years.

THE HORMONAL COMPOSITION OF MILK IN PRODUCTIVE ANIMALS AND ITS SAFETY FOR HUMANS

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-321
Author(s):  
P.A. Popov ◽  
◽  
V.S. Babunova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Trace Elements ◽  
Growth Factor ◽  
Dairy Products ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Important Food ◽  
The Past ◽  
Highly Sensitive ◽  
And Control

Hormones are an integral part of milk and throughout lactation, the content of certain hormones is unstable. Hormones regulate the process of starting lactation of animals, the lactation process itself, and also the other functions of the body. Milk is of great importance for the growth of young animals and the formation of immunity. Milk is a special product in the diet and is an important food and raw material for the production of dairy products for people. It contains a large amount of protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins and trace elements in biologically available form. But at the same time, over the past few years, more and more evidence has emerged that hormones in dairy products can impact on human health. Thus, some estrogens and insulin-like growth factor IGF-1 are involved in the initiation and provocation of breast, prostate and endometrial tumors. That’s why, it is necessary to normalize and control the content of certain hormones in milk with highly sensitive methods.

scholarly journals Synergism of the Combination of Traditional Antibiotics and Novel Phenolic Compounds against Escherichia coli

Pathogens ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 811
Author(s):  
Md. Akil Hossain ◽  
Hae-Chul Park ◽  
Sung-Won Park ◽  
Seung-Chun Park ◽  
Min-Goo Seo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Escherichia Coli ◽  
Rattus Norvegicus ◽  
Inhibitory Concentration ◽  
Epicatechin Gallate ◽  
Antibiotic Resistant ◽  
E Coli ◽  
Pathogenic Escherichia Coli ◽  
Resistant Strains ◽  
Novel Approaches ◽  
Rapid Emergence

Pathogenic Escherichia coli (E. coli)-associated infections are becoming difficult to treat because of the rapid emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains. Novel approaches are required to prevent the progression of resistance and to extend the lifespan of existing antibiotics. This study was designed to improve the effectiveness of traditional antibiotics against E. coli using a combination of the gallic acid (GA), hamamelitannin, epicatechin gallate, epigallocatechin, and epicatechin. The fractional inhibitory concentration index (FICI) of each of the phenolic compound-antibiotic combinations against E. coli was ascertained. Considering the clinical significance and FICI, two combinations (hamamelitannin-erythromycin and GA-ampicillin) were evaluated for their impact on certain virulence factors of E. coli. Finally, the effects of hamamelitannin and GA on Rattus norvegicus (IEC-6) cell viability were investigated. The FICIs of the antibacterial combinations against E. coli were 0.281–1.008. The GA-ampicillin and hamamelitannin-erythromycin combinations more effectively prohibited the growth, biofilm viability, and swim and swarm motilities of E. coli than individual antibiotics. The concentration of hamamelitannin and GA required to reduce viability by 50% (IC50) in IEC-6 cells was 988.54 μM and 564.55 μM, correspondingly. GA-ampicillin and hamamelitannin-erythromycin may be potent combinations and promising candidates for eradicating pathogenic E. coli in humans and animals.

scholarly journals Idrott och genus: Kroppens materialisering

2005 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-72
Author(s):  
Håkan Larsson
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Track And Field ◽  
The Other ◽  
Biological Entity ◽  
Male Body ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Male Discourse ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The One ◽  
Cultural Effect

Håkan Larsson: Sport and gender This article concerns bodily materialisation as it occurs in youth sport. It is based on interviews with teenagers 16 to 19 years of age doing track and field athletics. The purpose of the article is to elucidate how the notion of a “natural body“ can be seen as a cultural effect of sports practice and sports discourse. On the one hand, the body is materialised as a performing body, and on the other as a beautiful body. The “performing body“ is a single-sexed biological entity. The “beautiful body“ is a double-sexed and distinctly heterosexually appealing body. As these bodies collide in teenager track and field, the female body materialises as a problematic body, a body that is at the same time the subject of the girl’s personality. The male body materialises as an unproblematic body, a body that is the object of the boy’s personality. However, the body as “(a problematic) subject“ or as “(an unproblematic) object“ is not in itself a gendered body. Rather, these are positions on a cultural grid of power-knowledge relations. A girl might position herself in a male discourse, and a boy might position himself in a female discourse, but in doing so, they seem to have to pay a certain price in order not to be seen as queer.

scholarly journals 'The Full Monty'

M/C Journal ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Wolffram
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Past ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Political Act

The 'scholarly striptease', particularly as it is manifested in the United States, has attracted an increasing number of participants during the past decade. Unbeknownst to many, some academics have been getting their gear off in public; that is, publicly and provocatively showcasing their identities in order to promote their politics. While you might imagine that confessions about sexual orientation, ethnicity and pet hates could only serve to undermine academic authority, some American feminists -- and a small number of their male colleagues -- have nevertheless attempted to enhance their authority with such racy revelations. Nancy Miller's admission of a strained relationship with her father (Miller 143-147), or Jane Gallop's homage to the three 36-year-old men she had affairs with (Gallop 41), might make interesting reading for the academic voyeur (or the psychoanalyst), but what is their purpose beyond spectacle? The cynic might argue that self-promotion and intellectual celebrity or notoriety are the motivators -- and certainly he or she would have a point -- but within such performances of identity, and the metacriticism that clings to them, other reasons are cited. Apparently it is all to do with identity politics, that is, the use of your personal experience as the basis of your political stance. But while experience and the personal (remember "the personal is the political"?) have been important categories in feminist writing, the identity of the intellectual in academic discourse has traditionally been masked by a requisite objectivity. In a very real sense the foregrounding of academic identity by American feminists and those other brave souls who see fit to expose themselves, is a rejection of objectivity as the basis of intellectual authority. In the past, and also contemporaneously, intellectuals have gained and retained authority by subsuming their identity and their biases, and assuming an "objective" position. This new bid for authority, on the other hand, is based on a revelation of identity and biases. An example is Adrienne Rich's confession: "I have been for ten years a very public and visible lesbian. I have been identified as a lesbian in print both by myself and others" (Rich 199). This admission, which is not without risk, reveals possible biases and blindspots, but also allows Rich to speak with an authority which is grounded in experience of, and knowledge about lesbianism. Beyond the epistemological rejection of objectivity there appear to be other reasons for exposing one's "I", and its particular foibles, in scholarly writing. Some of these reasons may be considered a little more altruistic than others. For example, some intellectuals have used this practice, also known as "the personal mode", in a radical attempt to mark their culturally or critically marginal subjectivities. By straddling their vantage points within the marginalised subjectivity with which they identify, and their position in academia, these people can make visible the inequities they, and others like them, experience. Such performances are instances of both identity politics at work and the intellectual as activist. On the other hand, while this politically motivated use of "the personal mode" clearly has merit, cultural critics such as Elspeth Probyn have reminded us that in some cases the risks entailed by self-exposition are minimal (141), and that the discursive striptease is often little more than a vehicle for self-promotion. Certainly there is something of the tabloid in some of this writing, and even a tentative linking of the concepts of "academic" and "celebrity" -- Camille Paglia being the obvious example. While Paglia is among the few academics who are public celebrities, there are plenty of intellectuals who are famous within the academic community. It is often these people who can expose aspects of their identity without risking tenure, and it is often these same individuals who choose to confess what they had for breakfast, rather than their links with or concerns for something like a minority. For some, the advent of "the personal mode" particularly when it appears to contain a bid for academic or public fame signifies the denigration of academic discourse, its slow decline into journalistic gossip and ruin. For others, it is a truly political act allowing the participant to combine their roles as intellectual and activist. For me, it is a critical practice that fascinates and demands consideration in all its incarnations: as a bid for a new basis for academic authority, as a political act, and as a vehicle for self-promotion and fame. References Gallop, Jane. Thinking through the Body. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. Miller, Nancy K. Getting Personal: Feminist Occasions and Other Autobiographical Acts. New York: Routledge, 1991. Probyn, Elspeth. Sexing the Self: Gendered Positions in Cultural Studies. London: Routledge, 1993. Rich, Adrienne. Blood, Bread and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979-1985. New York: W.W Norton, 1986. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Heather Wolffram. "'The Full Monty': Academics, Identity and the 'Personal Mode'." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1.3 (1998). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9810/full.php>. Chicago style: Heather Wolffram, "'The Full Monty': Academics, Identity and the 'Personal Mode'," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1, no. 3 (1998), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9810/full.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Heather Wolffram. (1998) 'The full monty': academics, identity and the 'personal mode'. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1(3). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9810/full.php> ([your date of access])

scholarly journals Archiveras anarquistas: Corporal Testimony in the Work of Diamela Eltit

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Megan Corbin
Keyword(s):  
Feminist Criticism ◽  
The Body ◽  
Diamela Eltit ◽  
Truth Telling ◽  
The Past ◽  
Cultural Texts ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Chilean Dictatorship ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Historical Model

Abstract: There exists a constant within the trajectory of Diamela Eltit’s contributions to New Chilean Fiction: the turn to the body’s revelatory capacity as a corporal archive of human existence. Simultaneously exploring and rejecting the confines of the traditional testimonial reliance on language, Eltit moves the reader to a re-consideration of the truth-telling function of the biological materiality of the body, placing imperfect corporalities on display as a means of speaking, even where the voice itself may falter.  This essay locates Eltit’s move to the corporal within the trajectory of feminist criticism, the traumatic realities of the Chilean dictatorship and post-dictatorship periods, and the search for the recuperation of those bodily knowledges represented by the disappeared.  Next, it turns to Eltit’s Impuesto a la carne as her most recent re-visioning of the importance of corporal textualities, whether or not the subject-matter of the body’s denunciation is connected to the dictatorship.  Lastly, this essay reconsiders the rejective power of the traditional archive, analyzing the effect set models have on those who seek to tell their stories outside of the traditional testimonial model. I argue that the case of Diamela Eltit is an example of the way writers and producers of cultural texts which actively inscribe alternative memories of the past are resisting the authoritative power of the archive and subversively inscribing narrative memory onto bodily materialities, re-orienting the view of the corporal from an evidentiary showing to an active process of re-telling the past. Eltit’s novels, inscribed with her corporal textual model, give voice to survivors, articulating an alternate historical model for the archive, embracing the biological and making it speak against the rigid abuses of authoritarianism.

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