COVID-19 Pulmonary and Olfactory Dysfunctions: Is the Chemokine CXCL10 the Common Denominator?

COVID-19 is an ongoing viral pandemic that emerged from East Asia and quickly spread to the rest of the world. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus causing COVID-19. Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is definitely one of the main clinically relevant consequences in patients with COVID-19. Starting from the earliest reports of the COVID-19 pandemic, two peculiar neurological manifestations (namely, hyposmia/anosmia and dysgeusia) were reported in a relevant proportion of patients infected by SARS-CoV-2. At present, the physiopathologic mechanisms accounting for the onset of these symptoms are not yet clarified. CXCL10 is a pro-inflammatory chemokine with a well-established role in the COVID-19-related cytokine storm and in subsequent development of ARDS. CXCL10 is also known to be involved in coronavirus-induced demyelination. On these bases, a role for CXCL10 as the common denominator between pulmonary and olfactory dysfunctions could be envisaged. The aim of the present report will be to hypothesize a role for CXCL10 in COVID-19 olfactory dysfunctions. Previous evidences supporting our hypothesis, with special emphasis to the role of CXCL10 in coronavirus-induced demyelination, the anatomical and physiological peculiarity of the olfactory system, and the available data supporting their link during COVID-19 infections, will be overviewed.

EVALUATION OF NUTRIENT MEDIA TO GROW SOME INFECTION DISEASES CAUSATIVE AGENTS

The detection methods for microbial agents that have epidemiological significance are diversity but cultivation on nutritional media remains the gold standard in microbiological diagnostics. Choice of medium depends on the conditions in which, bacteria were early and is present. The nature life determines its physiological peculiarity then a metabolic plasticity promote to survive and to save the virulence. In. this review on the example of Yersinia pestis and Vibrio cholerae performed evaluations of the efficient decisions for the bacterial media development. It is declared advantage of baker’s yeast hydrolisate as the nutrition media base.

Guttural pouch mycosis in a donkey (Equus asinus): a case report

Guttural pouch mycosis is an emergency disease of the upper respiratory tract in equine species. In the present report a case of guttural pouch mycosis in a female, seven year-old pregnant donkey is described. A serious dyspnea which necessitated tracheotomy and preceding epistaxis was the most important clinical feature of guttural pouch mycosis in the donkey. A full and rapid effectiveness of the topical therapy, the protocol for which is described, is the main distinguishing feature with regard to treatment. In the Authors' knowledge a detailed description of clinical features, treatment and follow up of guttural pouch mycosis in a donkey is not available in the scientific literature. The anatomical and physiological peculiarity of donkeys could explain some of the differences with horses in clinical presentation and therapeutic management.

THE EXCESSIVE PROPORTION OF MALE OVER FEMALE DEATHS UNDER THE AGE OF PUBERTY IN PHILADELPHIA BETWEEN 1821 AND 1830

Ever since John Graunt (1620-1674) established the statistical science of epidemiology, physicians have been aware of the greater vulnerability of the male to disease than the female. Graunt also called attention to the excess of males over females at birth; he further commented on the greater mortality rate of the male throughout his life. The following observations upon the mortality of infants and children in Philadelphia were probably the first published in this country to support Graunt's observations: Of the children born in Philadelphia during the ten years included between 1821 and 1830, amounting according to the returns made to the Board of Health, to 66,642; there were 2,496 more males than females. But notwithstanding the males at birth thus exceed the females about 7½ per cent, a reference to the census of 1830, shows that by the fifth year of childhood, the male excesss is reduced to about 5 per cent; and at ten years to only 1 per cent; and that the reduction still going on, the females between the ages of ten and fifteen, exceed the males about 8 per cent; and between fifteen and twenty, 7.3 per cent. Here then we find, that during the early stages of life, there are agencies operating to reduce unduly the proportion of the male sex, and to trace out and identify these, forms a highly interesting subject of inquiry. It has commonly been supposed that the greater exposure of males to accidents furnished a sufficient explanation of their greater mortality. But our inquiry (in 1830) shows the fallacy of this reasoning, the deaths reported under the head of casualties consisting but a small proportion of the whole mortality, in which when burns and scalds are included, the female deaths are found to exceed the male. The truth is that with very few exceptions, all the morbid influences to which the early periods of life are exposed, operate with peculiar fatality among the males, showing unequivocally that the true cause of the disparity resides in some physiological peculiarity.

Alcoholism: Group Factors in Etiology and Therapy

Despite the many factors involved in alcoholism, one basic characteristic distinguishes the problem drinker from the remainder of the drinking population. He is unable to control his drinking. Once he has begun to drink, he continues until some external force interrupts him. Thus, he may "pass out," become ill, find himself in jail, be deprived of his "supply," or injure himself in some way. The basic criterion of alcoholism is not what is done while sober, but whether there develops an irresistible "yen" to keep on drinking once it has been started. The problem drinker experiences this as a strong desire that asserts itself upon the resumption of drinking. Whether this compulsion is a physiological peculiarity, a conversion hysteria, or some other factor is a wide-open question. Less debatable is the definition that the alcoholic is one who deviates from the drinking limits accepted by most of those around him. Where the non-alcoholic accepts standards that define when he has had enough, the developing alcoholic continues to drink beyond these limitations until controls outside himself intervene to stop him. It is this uncontrolled drinking that constitutes the core of the syndrome termed alcoholism.

I. History of two cases of hernia of the ovaries, in one of which there was a periodical enlargement of one or other of these organs

The two cases which I beg to present to the Royal Society, are examples of a rare conformation of the female sexual organs, in which the two ovaria have descended through the inguinal canals and have become permanently lodged in the upper part of the external labia; and in both of them the most careful and repeated physical examination has failed to detect either uterus or vagina. I should hardly, however, have ventured to bring them before the Society simply as examples of faulty conformation—because, although rare, yet they have been observed—had not the first of the two cases presented the interesting physiological peculiarity of a spontaneous periodical increase of one or other of the ovaria, followed by its gradual reduction, thus supplying direct evidence of an ovarian menstrual act. The subject of the first case applied to me in September 1851 for advice on account of never having menstruated.