Are war and public health compatible?

Abstract

The term reflection has been been used to describe a form of re-entry in a linear bundle in which two regions of excitable tissue are separated by an area of depressed conduction.4 During reflection, excitation occurs slowly in one direction along the bundle and is followed by continued propagation and excitation in the opposite direction. One form of reflection may be micro re-entry due to functional longitudinal dissociation within the depressed segments Parasystole An ectopic pacemaker may sometimes be connected to the remainder of the heart through tissue in which there is unidirectional block. Such block prevents the dominant rhythm, usually a sinus rhythm, from entering the region where the ectopic pacemaker is located. As a result, the ectopic pacemaker is not suppressed by the dominant rhythm. Moreover, because the block is unidirectional, impulses generated by the ectopic pacemaker can be conducted out to other regions of the heart provided these regions are not refractory, causing premature beats or even a tachycardia. This kind of rhythm is called parasystole. Phase 4 block An impulse may be blocked if it arrives at a site-eg, in the His bundle or one of the bundle branches-that is partly depolarised during spontaneous phase 4 depolarisation but has not reached threshold. This spontaneous diastolic depolarisation can depolarise the tissue sufficiently to inactivate the fast sodium channels and cause failure of propagation. 10

Emergency Medical Services During the Siege of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Preliminary Report

“…Toole et al reported detailed assessments of the public health consequences of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 13 Also, Acheson 14 recently reviewed humanitarian relief efforts and health assessments by the WHO in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kuzman et al 15 recently reviewed causes of death in the war in Croatia. International humanitarian relief efforts in Sarajevo have not kept-up with the emergency care needs of the civilian population.…”

Civilian Women at War: Psychological Impact Decades After the Vietnam War

“…Many worked in hospitals often subjected to rocket attacks. They witnessed war atrocities, risked personal safety when working on military bases, and experienced aggravated sexual exploitation and environmental degradation (Geiger, 2000;Toole, Galson, & Brady, 1993). The phenomenon of war and its psychological aftermath may differentially affect their lives for many years.…”

The Use of Cluster Sampling to Determine Aid Needs in Grozny, Chechnya in 1995

“…Public health activities are difficult during a war, but often possible in areas where there is no active fighting or confrontation (Armenian, 1986;Toole et al, 1993;Healing et al, 1996). The survey reported here showed that a technique which had proved itself in the aftermath of a natural disaster (Hlady et al, 1994) was also useful in a war zone although further work is necessary to make it more user friendly.…”