Drowning

Drowning, death by suffocation due to the presence of water in the respiratory system.

Resuscitation by artificial respiration can prevent the death of a person with water in the lungs if instituted quickly. Because of the constant need of body tissues for oxygen, even a few minutes of suffocation can result in brain damage or death. The exception to this appears in persons who have been submerged in cold water. Some victims have been completely revived, without brain damage, after having been underwater for as long as a half hour. This phenomenon, the so-called diving reflex, has long been observed in sea mammals. Activated when the face is plunged into water below 21° C (70° F), it slows body processes so that oxygen-bearing blood is diverted to the heart and brain.

Doxycycline

Doxycycline, antibiotic drug used to treat various types of bacterial infections including urinary tract infections, traveler’s diarrhea, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, trachoma, and syphilis. It is also sometimes used to treat early Lyme disease and to prevent the spread of malaria. Doxycycline belongs to a group of antibiotics known as tetracyclines. It works by interfering with the invading bacteria’s ability to form essential proteins, thereby halting their growth.

This drug is available by prescription in capsules, tablets, and liquid forms, which are taken orally, although one form of liquid is made for injection. Typical dosages range from 100 to 200 mg per day, taken in one or two doses, with a recommended maximum dose of 300 mg a day. Unless this drug causes stomach upset, it should be taken on an empty stomach (one hour before or two hours after a meal) with a full glass of water. Doxycycline usually relieves symptoms after 48 hours of treatment, but it should be taken for the entire prescribed length of time to avoid recurrence of infection.

Patients with liver disease and pregnant or breast-feeding women should not use this drug. It may be taken by children over the age of eight at a dosage based on body weight. Possible side effects include diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, skin rash, itching, light sensitivity, headache, facial swelling, chest pain, difficulty swallowing, or bulging forehead (in infants). Children may develop discolored teeth, especially with long-term use.

Doxycyline may interact adversely with antacids and other common gastrointestinal medications, birth control pills, barbiturates, blood-thinners, penicillin, phenytoin, sodium bicarbonate, and carbamazepine.

Brand Names:Doryx, Vibramycin, Vibra-Tabs, Bio-Tab

Psychoactive Drugs

Psychoactive Drugs, chemical substances that alter mood, behavior, perception, or mental functioning. Throughout history, many cultures have found ways to alter consciousness through the ingestion of substances. In current professional practice, psychoactive substances known as psychotropic drugs have been developed to treat patients with severe mental illness.

Psychoactive substances exert their effects by modifying biochemical or physiological processes in the brain. The message system of nerve cells, or neurons, relies on both electrical and chemical transmission. Neurons rarely touch each other; the microscopic gap between one neuron and the next, called the synapse, is bridged by chemicals called neuroregulators, or neurotransmitters. Psychoactive drugs act by altering neurotransmitter function. The drugs can be divided into six major pharmacological classes based on their desired behavioral or psychological effect: alcohol, sedative-hypnotics, narcotic analgesics, stimulant-euphoriants, hallucinogens, and psychotropic agents.

Lysergic Acid Diethylamide

Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD), potent hallucinogenic drug, also called a psychedelic (see Psychoactive Drugs), first synthesized from lysergic acid in Switzerland in 1938. Lysergic acid is a component of the mold of ergot, a fungus that forms on rye grain. The drug evokes dreamlike changes in mood and thought and alters the perception of time and space. It can also create a feeling of lack of self-control and extreme terror. Physical effects include drowsiness, dizziness, dilated pupils, numbness and tingling, weakness, tremors, and nausea.

Transient abnormal thinking induced by LSD, such as a sense of omnipotence or a state of acute paranoia, can result in dangerous behavior. Long-term adverse reactions such as persistent psychosis, prolonged depression, or faulty judgment have also been reported following LSD ingestion, but whether these are a direct result of ingestion is difficult to establish. Physiologically, LSD may cause chromosomal damage to white blood cells; no hard evidence has been found, however, that LSD causes genetic defects in the children of users.

Although LSD is not physiologically addicting, the drug's potent mind-altering effects can lead to chronic use.

The drug has been tried as a treatment for infantile autism, for alcoholism, and to accelerate psychotherapy, but no medical use has been established.

Cyst

Cyst, in medicine, encapsulated sac, having no opening, and enclosing liquid or semisolid pathological or foreign material. The cyst wall, formed of fibrous connective tissue or of muscular fibers, has an inner surface lined with epithelium.

Retention cysts arising from distension of preexisting spaces result from the closure of a duct such as that of a sebaceous gland. An effusion of blood into a body cavity may result in an exudation cyst. Dermoid cysts are due to faulty development during the embryonic period. Adventitious cysts develop around foreign bodies or parasites introduced into deep tissue. When an inert body such as a metal or glass splinter is embedded in muscle tissue, it may become encysted. Another type of adventitious cyst is formed by the larvae of certain parasitic worms. Treatment of cysts is by surgical removal of the entire sac.