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Computerised axial tomography requires total immobility, which must be obtained by a simple and safe technique of anaesthesia. Three anaesthesia techniques were used and analysed in 54 children aged less than 5 years: the technique of the feeding bottle, sedation with pentobarbital or diazepam and general anaesthesia with ketamine hydrochloride. The technique of the feeding bottle can be proposed in selected patients. Sedation can be also used but judiciously, not to deep. The systematic use of an depression immobilizing mattress with these two techniques gives better results. Intramuscular ketamine hydrochloride, when not contrindicate (intracranial hypertension or acute hydrocephaly), has been used always successfully.

This work analyzes the results of 88 blocks for intractable pain in thoracic and abdominal malignant diseases. Results and duration of analgesia are compared in regard to the localization of pain and to the use of alcohol or phenol. Best analgesic results are obtained in the pelvic pains and especially in the colorectal pains. The analgesic results and the duration of analgesia are poorer since the spinal nerves to block are higher, there are only 50 p. cent of good results in the thoracic region. Analgesic results are the same with alcohol or phenol, but duration of analgesia seems to be longer with phenol. The two routes of administration, subarachnoid or epidural, seem to give equal results. Motor paralysis of the bladder or the rectum may occur, especially in the low pelvic localizations and these complications justify careful selection of the indication.

The authors study the influence of a new subarachnoïd anasthesia technique on the incidence of headaches. A statistical survey is carried out on two homogeneous samples of patients who had undergone urologic surgery.

The mean flux of radon-222 atoms from the island of Hawaii is 0.45 atom per square centimeter per second. Lava fields occupy 50 percent of the land area, but their radon flux is only 1 percent of that from deep volcanic soils. The island yields approximately 10 curies of radon-222 per hour to the air surrounding it. The radon-222 contribuition of volcanoes is negligible.