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Abstracts fra Bibliotek for Læger 3/2012

14. sep. 2018
4 min.

Originalartikel: Epidemier på Sjælland og i Skåne omkring 1710
Karl-Erik Frandsen

 

The epidemics in Zealand and Scania around 1710. Mortality, gender, and age.

Bibl Læger 2012;204:213-40.

 

Devastating epidemics occurring with short intervals were typical for the development of populations in Northern Europe in the 18th century. The sources behind the investigation of the epidemics are mainly the parish registers, which were introduced in Denmark and Sweden from around 1645. The registers always contained the name and often also the age of the deceased, but very rarely the cause of death. Using these registers makes it relatively easy to observe, when an epidemic occurred, but it is much more difficult to determine the exact aetiology of the disease. However, in September 1709 the keepers of the parish registers of Copenhagen were told to mention the cause of death as well as the length of the illness in every funeral note. Therefore, it is possible to show that each of the main epidemics (smallpox, typhus and bubonic plague) had its specific characteristics regarding the statistical distribution of sex and age of the deceased. The observations of the mortality based on the Copenhagen “Vor Frue” parish register seems to be confirmed by analyses of a number of similar registers in Zealand and Scania from the same years (but without information about the cause of death). The article concludes that it is possible, within certain limits, to identify whether an epidemic is due to typhus, smallpox or plague, based on the fact that the mortality rate of each disease displays a specific distribution of sex and gender. 

 
Originalartikel: Noceboeffekten
Gitte Laue Petersen & Lene Vase

 

Nocebo effects – the influence of negative expectations on sickness 

Bibl Læger 2012;204:241-53.

 

Nocebo effects describe how negative expectations may influence sickness negatively. Clinical trials have shown that information about adverse events is sufficient to create such events and thereby cause nocebo-like effects. The majority of nocebo research has been carried out in relation to pain. Negative expectations of pain have been shown to increase the pain experience and to activate neural structures normally involved in pain processing. Further, negative expectations have been shown to abolish the effect of active pain medication. Thus, in clinical practice it is important to have a heighten awareness of how to counteract and minimize harmful nocebo effects.

 
Originalartikel: “Gi´ mig solen” 
Kaare Weismann

 

“Give me the sun”

Syphilis in Henrik Ibsen’s “Ghosts” 

Bibl Læger 2012; 204:254-69.

 

In 1881, the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen published the scandalous family drama “Gengangere” (”Ghosts”). It caused an immediate literary stir due to the revelation of immorality within a seemingly respectable bourgeois family. Particularly Osvald (son of the deceased family patriarch, who lived a promiscuous life kept in secret by his wife) gave much offence to the spectators, because he had contracted syphilis at a time, when the disease was considered disgraceful. However, Henrik Ibsen’s description of his main character’s illness does not meet elementary criteria of syphilis, especially not of those of dementia paralytica, from which he is supposed to suffer, and which ultimately forces him to persuade his mother to give him a lethal dose of morphine. Today we know that syphilis is not a fatal disease, but at Ibsen’s time and well into the 20th century it was considered so. For more than 130 years “Ghosts” has contributed to the phobic dread of syphilis, the unspeakable disease, and Osvald’s tragic end still leaves the audience with a sinister, but unwarranted impression of the disease. 

 
Et billede fra min hverdag
Jan Fouchard

 
Originalartikel: Den fede ælling og den slanke svane
Camilla Schwartz 

 

The fat duckling and the slim swan

Weight loss as an adventurous educational journey toward “the good life”

Bibl Læger 2012;204:272-95.

 

This article focuses on the anti-obesity campaigns distributed by the National Board of Health and demonstrates, how the campaigns inscribe the obese individual as the central protagonist in an imaginary fairy tale universe and how this positioning oversimplify the complex life situation of obese citizens and potentially fuel stigma and isolation. The paper also shows, how the novel “Bjerget” (“The mountain”) by the Danish author Mads Brenøe through its empathy with the obese protagonist depicts and deconstructs the illusionary fantasy of “the good life” of the slim welfare state citizen.

 
Kvartalets genstand
Morten A. Skydsgaard

 
Interview med Asser Amdisen: Struensee – mand og myte
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