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Excessive Pronation    

     Pronation is the normal movement the foot makes to absorb the impact from walking or running. It occurs once the heel strikes the ground and the foot disperses the impact, stretching and flattening the arch as the foot rolls inward. Supination is the opposite motion of pronation. The foot supinates, or rolls on its outer edge, to help with stability as we walk or run.

     A reasonable amount of pronation is necessary for the foot to function properly. However, when the foot arch remains flat and the foot rolls inward too much one may have excessive pronation or over pronation. This medical condition can result from continually straining the feet and wearing footwear that lacks sufficient foot arch support.

     Excessive pronation causes the foot's arch to collapse which in turn causes the foot to twist outwards. A person with excessive pronation generally walks abnormally, on the inner edge of the foot. This stresses and misaligns the ligaments, muscles and tendons in the foot, leg and even the back. Eventually, this misalignment brings about muscular inefficiency, reducing speed and endurance while walking or running.

     Undiagnosed and untreated, excessive pronation may lead to serious foot and lower body injuries. Among the most common injuries are flat feet, weak arches, bunions, corns, calluses, heel pain, Achilles Tendonitis, frequent ankle sprains, shin splints and knee, hip and back pains.

     There are several methods of treating excessive pronation, but the most common is to use a specially made medical insole that is placed in the shoe. This is how I am being treated for my excessive pronation. To have excessive pronation diagnosed you need to see a doctor who will examine your foot then he will take some x-rays.The process for making an insole is a quick inspection by a physical therapist who will take a cast of your foot, followed by about two weeks of waiting for the insole to be made.

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Edward Jenner

ByMatthewThorn                                       January 10, 2008

     Jenner lived from1749 to 1823, and is accredited with creating the first vaccine, and finding a vaccine for small pox. He apprenticed under Dr. Ludlow for several years. When the doctor taught him all he could, Jenner went to London to begin his formal studies under John Hunter. Dr. Hunter was the leading surgeon of his day, and one of the greatest medical investigators of all time. Dr. Hunter recognized Jenner's talent, and once his training was over offered him a position as his assistant. Jenner also received an offer to be to come aboard a ship and be the ship's naturalist. Jenner refused both offers to return home to the village he grew up in.

     Once home he settled down, got married and started his practice. One day he remembered something he had heard while under Dr. Ludlow. He remembered something he had heard a milkmaid say while being treated for a cut on her hand. She had said that she could not contract smallpox because she had already had cowpox. After some consideration, he presented it to some of his friends, only to be met with ridicule from the doctors among them. This did not deter him, though. When it was a full formed medical opinion, he decided not to present it to doctors, but a poet he knew. After this he found confidence in his idea and set out to prove it.

     His friends found many flaws in his idea; they would point out cases where people had contracted cowpox, and then smallpox. It took Jenner five years of studying cow diseases to figure this out. He decided that there was more than one kind of smallpox, and that these people had had a different kind. He made a list of symptoms for the real cowpox, the kind that would prevent smallpox. Then his friends pointed out that in Newport there had been an epidemic of the true cowpox, and then a smallpox epidemic. Confronted with this new information, he started over, starting with the cows in Newport.

Then he progressed to hundreds of milkmaids and cows. Nine more years passed, before he figured out that real cowpox had several distinct phases.

     On May 14, 1796, a milk maid came into Jenner's office needing her hand to be bandaged because of cowpox. Jenner decided it was finally time to try his idea, so he called his caretaker's son into his office. He scrapped some of the cowpox puss into the boy's skin, giving him cowpox. Later on July 1^st, Jenner scraped smallpox into the boy's skin. This was not that unusual, you can only get smallpox once, and being infected with smallpox in this manner was believed to be milder than "catching" it. The boy didn't get smallpox! Jenner repeated the experiment twenty-three times before publishing it. He called his historic paper An Inquiry into the Cause and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae.

      Great commotion followed the announcement. Along came rumors like children who were vaccinated began to moo. The attitude began to change because of the need, though, and soon Jenner was the most talked about man in the world. Soon there was no part of the world that had not begun vaccinating against smallpox. The new country of the United States was unsure of the vaccination at first, but when President Thomas Jefferson had himself vaccinated, the country followed. Jenner began receiving gifts from all around the world. He received a diamond ring from the Empress of Russia, an American Indian chief sent him a wampum belt, Napoleon released two prisoners because they were friends of Jenner's, and in Germany the day of the boy's vaccination was celebrated as a national holiday.

     That was the end of smallpox; Jenner's vaccine was in use every where around the world. Jenner had killed a disease.

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First Aid Kit for Mississippi

• Bandages
• CPR barrier shield
• Insect repellant
• Gauze
• Ace bandage
• Disinfectant
• Sunscreen
• Aloe Vera
• Neosporin
• Lotion for poison ivy/oak
• Latex gloves
• Water
• Salt
• Snake bite kit
• Ibuprofen
• Aspirin
• Benadryl
• Splint
• Light
• Tweezers
• Scissors
• Large cloth for slings
• Tarp
• Alcohol wipes
• Safety pins
• Athlete's foot powder

First Aid Kit for Antarctica

• First aid book
• Scissors
• CPR barrier shield
• Splinter picker forceps
• Antibiotic ointment
• Antiseptic towelettes
• Tincture of Benzoin
• Butterfly closure strips
• Moleskin (blisters)
• Latex gloves
• Infectious control bag
• Antimicrobial hand wipes
• Sterile dressings
• Adhesive tape
• Bandages
• Cotton tip applicators
• Extra-Strength Tylenol
• Antihistamine
• Motrin
• Anti-diarrhea medicine
• Safety Pins
• Splint
• Aloe Vera
• Sunscreen
• Duct Tape
• Salt / hydration fluids
• Powder for rashes
• Athlete's foot powder
• Waterproof matches
• Thermometer
• Scalpel
• Dental filling kit

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Glaciers

By Matthew Thorn

     A glacier is a large river of ice moving at a slow rate. Glaciers occur in areas where snow falls all year with little melt off. Glaciers move simply by gravity leaving a barren area behind them. Glaciers are the largest source of fresh water, second only to the oceans as the largest source of any water.

     Glacial ice is formed in a three step process. The first step is to form granular ice. Granular ice or nv is formed when snow falls, then is melted, and frozen many times. The second step is to create firn. Firn is formed when the weight of the snow above it compacts granular ice into firn. The final step is to form glacial ice. Glacial ice is simply even further compacted firn. To do this takes several years of compacting, under great pressure.

     Glaciers move because of gravity and a thin layer of water under the ice. The layer of water is formed by pressure. Most substance's melting temperature rises when under pressure, but for water it is exactly the opposite. The pressure on the ice is so great that it melts and slides on itself.

     Glaciers erode sediment through mainly three processes; abrasion, plucking, and bulldozing. Abrasion is when the sediment being pushed by the glacier rakes across the bedrock and is pulverized into what is called rock flour. The size of a particle must be from 0.002 to 0.00625 mm across. Plucking is when rocks are lifted or "plucked" from the soil. This occurs when water penetrates the space around the rock and freezes, lifting the rock into the glacier. Bulldozing is simply when the glacier pushes sediment in front of it.

     Glaciers deposit the sediment they carry in four ways. One way is till. Till is formed when a glacier stops moving and begins to melt. In the case of till, all the sediment in the glacier is simply left to rest where it falls. A second way is drumlins. Drumlins occur as hills of piled up sediment pushed out of the way as glaciers move. Another way is glacier erratics. They are rocks left behind by glaciers in erratic patterns (hence, the name), left behind by either being snagged, melting out, or for other reasons. The last way is stratified drift, which is the sediment carried out of the glacier by meltwater. It can be carried miles by braided streams (streams formed by meltwater).

     When glaciers reach the ocean, they float (look at an ice cube). They become icebergs and slowly deposit their remaining sediment over the ocean floor as they melt.

     There are many ways to find more information on glaciers and the geology of Antarctica, all available to anyone who has a library or the internet. One website I recommend is The British Antarctic Survey.

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  Above is a video containing our interview with Doug.

How the Eye Works

     Light enters and is refracted through the cornea. It then passes through the lens which fine focuses it, and projects it onto the retina. The upside down image is picked up by photoreceptors on the retina which send signals to the brain which decode them as images.

William Thomas Morton and Anesthesia

     William was born in Charlton City, Massachusetts on August 8, 1819. His father said that from any early age he wanted to be a doctor, making pills for his friends from bread and leaves. His family didn't have the money to send him to medical school. He may have attended Baltimore College of Dentistry, for some time.  Later, when his family moved to Boston, he attended Harvard Medical School.

     In 1843, he became partners with Horace Wells in a dentistry business. Together they took on the problem of making a better spring-free denture plate. There was one problem with their dentures though.  Before the plate for the false teeth could be placed all roots and stumps of the original teeth had to be removed. This was a painful, bloody procedure. Horace soon left the partnership. Morton became quite sucessful in his business, but he was all too aware of the pain of his patients.

     All the components of anesthesia had already been invented.  Sulfuric ether had been discovered in 1540, nitrous oxide had been discovered in 1772, and in 1799 Sir Humphrey Davy had described the potential for the use of nitrous oxide in surgery.  In 1846, Morton had begun experiments with ether.  In his experiments he used worms, insects, goldfish, and a dog.  On October 16, 1846,  Morton arrived as Dr. Warren prepared to remove a tumor from Gilbert Abbott.  Over the previous weeks Morton had devised an apparatus to contain the ether.  Morton administered the ether to Gilbert and then told Warren, "Your patient is ready, sir."  After the surgery, Gilbert said, "No.  It didn't hurt at all, although my neck did feel for a moment as though someone were scraping it with a hoe." 

      Morton then attempted to patent his invention but the patent office would not allow him to patent unchanged ether. Crawford Long, a doctor who had used ether in 1842 but had made no public announcement of his work, also made attempts to claim ether as his invention.  Charles Jackson, Morton's tutor at Harvard, made attempts at claiming ether because Morton had learned most of what he knew about ether from him.  Horace Wells, his partner in the dentistry business, also tried to claim it as his own.

     Although Morton was not the first to use ether to dull pain, he was the first to publically present it to other doctors.

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Seizures

     Seizures are the outward symptoms of brain disorders, medicine, head injuries and certain diseases. Seizures are not always violent convulsions and some can have very mild symptoms. Seizures are categorized into 2 broad categories partial seizures or full seizures. A seizure usually lasts 30 seconds to 2 minutes, if a seizure lasts more than 5 minutes or if there are multiple seizures and the person does not wake up in between it is considered a medical emergency.

    To help someone who is having a seizure the first thing you need do is to get everything away from the person that is having the seizure, loosen any clothing around the head and neck. Turn the person on his/her side to prevent choking on vomit. Call 911 immediately.

To avoid getting seizures yourself you should avoid circumstances where head injuries can occur, wear seatbelt while driving, and wear a helmet while riding a bike or skate board or bicycle.

     You need practicaly nothing to treat a seizure.

By Matt Thorn

DNA Testing

     After checking with health offices in 2 counties, I found there is nowhere in my area to get DNA testing, but  there are many places on the internet to get it done. I have seen prices from $99-$999 for parental testing. Doctors who want to start DNA testing are recommended to have a degree in biochemistry, biology, or genetics. DNA testing isn't done with only blood anymore. It can be done with hair, saliva, or cheek cells extracted by a cotton swab.

By Matt Thorn

Jacob Henle

     Jacob Henle contributed directly to the areas of pathology (the study of disease), histology (the study of tissue), physiology (the study of the properties of man in good health), and anatomy, but indirectly to almost all areas of medicine. The books he wrote affected medical thinking all throughout Germany, Europe, and North America.

     Henle wrote many influencial books some of which are "Patologische Untersuchungen", "Allegemeine Anatomie", "Handbuch der Rationellen Pathologie", "Handbuch der Systematischen Anatomies des Menscher", and "Zeitschrift fur Rationelle Medizen"

     He contributed to anatomy by writing "Allegemeine Anatomie" (General Anatomy), a book which brought a great advance over Bichat's earlier classification of tissue. To write the book, he made extensive use of the microscope, and tried to relate structure to function. His goal in writting the book was to "understand the processes and symptoms of disease as the law-like reactions of an organic substance endowed with  peculiar and inalienable powers against abnormal external influences." The great German biologist, Walther Flemming, said Henle's book "contained the  first real, ration tissue theory of the animal body, so comprehensive  and many-sided, that it earned the admiration of the entire biological world."  

     In his book "Patologische Untersuchungen" (Pathological Investigations)he revolutionized the way disease was thought of. He siad that living microscopic agents enter the body multiply, and cause disease. He said there were 3 kinds of agents the 1st maisma enters the body from the enviroment, the 2nd contagia are transmitted by person-to-person contact, and the 3rd miasmatic-contagious agents can enter either way. He studied many diseases to prove his points some of which are rabies, smallpox, and tuberculosis.

     Through reading about Henle I learned how much he contributed to todays medicine through books, professorships, and ideas.

By Matt Thorn

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