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J M Ratcliffe

Publications and source records attributed to J M Ratcliffe.

22 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1977

Developmental and behavioural functions in young children with elevated blood lead levels.

Blood lead levels in some pre-schoolchildren living near a lead works and particularly in some children with fathers employed at the lead works showed evidence of increased exposure. Forty-seven of them took part three years later in a follow-up study of their developmental and behavioural functions. The children were aged between 4 and 5 1/2 years and were closely matched for age, sex, social class, parental education, area, and length of residence. Only three children had moved house since their blood lead levels had been examined at two years of age; these levels ranged between 18 and 64 microgram/100 ml. None of the children had clinical symptoms of plumbism. No statistically significant (P less than or equal to 0.05) differences were found on developmental and behavioural scores when the children were divided into two groups of less than or equal to 35 microgram/100 ml (n = 23) and greater than 35 microgram/100 ml (n = 24). The differences in scores were of the same order as those between boys and girls, which were themselves generally not significant. Behaviour ratings did not differ. The variations in developmental skills were generally found to be more related to age and schooling; neither these factors nor the difference in sex was related to blood lead levels.

Age Factors↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The 'unified hypothesis' of Geddes et al. is not supported by the data.

Inflicted head injury to the developing brain frequently results in serious disability. The pathogenesis of the neuraxial and ocular findings in infants believed to have suffered inflicted head injury remains the subject of considerable debate. Recent neuropathology studies of fatal cases of inflicted head injury and of a foetal/perinatal non-traumatic model have led to the proposal that there is a 'unified hypothesis', the essential feature of which is hypoxic brain swelling secondary to cervicomedullary injury. It has been suggested that less than violent forces may be involved and even that some cases may not be due to trauma at all. The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical review of the data upon which these suppositions are based on a background of what is already known. It is submitted that there are serious flaws in the methodology; the conclusions reached cannot logically be drawn from the data; and the 'unified hypothesis' is not supported by the evidence. On the basis of the data presented, it is also difficult to sustain the secondary hypothesis purporting to describe a minority cohort with 'infantile encephalopathy with subdural and retinal bleeding' of non-traumatic causation.

Brain↗