Biomedical subjects

J M Farris

Publications and source records attributed to J M Farris.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1982

Operative mortality in general surgery.

The operative mortality in over 7,000 consecutive cases at a Veterans Administration Medical Center is defined. The mortality in elective procedures is low by most standards and is usually associated with a malignant disease. Older patients appear to have an increased operative mortality. Sepsis is the major factor in death after elective and emergency procedures. Age is a critical factor associated with mortality in this population. Preexisting disease (pulmonary, cardiac, hepatic, and malignant) plays a role in determining outcome. Despite these factors it is possible to achieve excellent operative mortality results in a hospital with a commitment to resident training. An aggressive diagnostic and therapeutic approach is considered reasonable to support these patients with multisystem disease. This often includes the extensive use of expensive resources such as preoperative hospitalization with nutritional support and prolonged stays in the surgical intensive care unit postoperatively.

Adult↗

PubMed1977

Localization of motor neuron pools supplying identified muscles in normal and supernumerary legs of chick embryo.

Neuromuscular specificity has been investigated in chick embryos with a grafted supernumerary leg. The nerves of the lumbar plexus are divided between the two legs so that rostral nerves innervate the grafted leg and the caudal nerves supply the host's original leg. The basic topographic organization of the histologically definable motor neuron clusters of the lateral motor columns remains unchanged by the addition of a supernumerary leg. Intramuscular injections of identified leg muscles have been used to map the intraspinal location of specific motor pools in stage 38 (12-day) embryos. In the normal embryo, the gastrocnemius muscle is innervated by neurons in a central dorsal cluster of motor neurons in segments 26-29. In six experimental cases, the motor neurons supplying the gastrocnemius muscle of a rostrally placed grafted leg were consistently located in a specific medial cluster of neurons in segments 23-25. Motor neurons in this location never normally innervate a gastrocnemius muscle, even in the very young embryos during the period of naturally occurring cell death. This observation of a systematic mismatch between a particular motor cluster and an abnormally innervated muscle indicates the operation of a selective developmental process. A hierarchy of selective chemoaffinities may best explain our experimental results.

Animals↗

PubMed1976

The practicality of the Congo Red test, or is your vagotomy complete?

The use of Congo Red testing for adequacy of vagotomy in a variety of clinical situations is described. Its intraoperative use is presented for the first time, thus allowing the surgeon immediate documentation of the completeness of his vagotomy and hopefully averting incomplete vagotomy, the single most common cause of ulcer recurrence after vagotomy-pyloroplasty.

Animals↗

PubMed1975

Spectrum of cholangitis.

Of 402 patients admitted with biliary disease over the last three years, cholangitis has been diagnosed in 36. This represents an 8.8 per cent overal incidence and a 33.8 per cent incidence among patients who have undergone operation or manipulation involving the common duct. Based on this experience, a program of prophylaxis and treatment of cholangitis has been devised with special emphasis on the management of elderly patients in the initial postoperative period.

Acute Disease↗

PubMed1973