The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7183 p150
2 February 2002

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Whales in peril [more]
Down in the dumps [more]
Integer vitae [more]
Pride of place [more]

Whales in peril

There has been disquiet for some time over the potentially lethal effects of high-intensity sonar systems used by the United States navy to detect submarines in the vicinity of surface vessels.

A report published in Nature for 10 January states that 16 beaked and minke whales were found stranded on beaches in the neighbourhood of the Bahamas after naval ships had passed the area. Six of the whales are known to have died, the remainder being pushed back into the sea to meet an unspecified fate. Moreover, the recent reduction in sightings of beaked whales has led to the conclusion that many more may have been killed in the same fashion. Post mortem examination of some of the animals has revealed haemorrhage around the animals' inner ears, and in one instance in the brain.

The bleeding has been attributed to the impact of violent sound waves. In previous reports of similar occurrences the cause of stranding could not be discovered by autopsy. Nevertheless, it has now been concluded that high-intensity radar may not necessarily pose a widespread threat to marine life in general. It is suggested that in the case of the Bahama whales special tidal and weather conditions may have led to the establishment of a layer of warm water that impeded the dissipation of the generated waves. The whales may then have become trapped within underwater canyons while feeding, and so were submitted to high-intensity vibrations.

Wildlife experts are insisting that further examination of the effects on the marine fauna of sonar systems needs to be carried out in the light of the US navy's intention of seeking approval for a new sonar system operating at lower frequencies than those used hitherto.

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Down in the dumps

At this rather cheerless time of year, when long nights and overcast mornings have an unpleasant effect upon our enthusiasm for life and activity, it is usual to be a trifle depressed.

The condition known as seasonal affective disorder (appropriately abbreviated to SAD) is a recurrent type of winter depression commonly encountered in our temperate latitudes. Its dominant symptoms include moody depression, lack of energy and enterprise, irritability, anxiety, loss of power to concentrate on tasks, reduced libido, and withdrawal from social encounters. Unlike non-seasonal types of depression, SAD involves sleepiness, which is often troublesome during the daytime, and an urge to eat more, particularly chocolate and high carbohydrate foods.

According to a commentary published in The Lancet for 22/29 December 2001, from the psychiatry department of the Royal Cornhill Hospital, Aberdeen, some 3 per cent of the United Kingdom population suffers from clinically significant winter depression. The symptoms often respond to treatment with one of the specific serotonin-reuptake inhibitors such as fluoxetine, paroxedine, citalopram or sertraline, but not invariably.

Light therapy has been widely advocated, although some of the detailed evidence is conflicting. One method involves exposure to light intensity of about 2,500 lux or more. Morning light treatment has been found to be more effective than treatment later in the day. The basis of such treatment is that it advances the onset of melatonin secretion, which is delayed in depressed individuals,

Studies have been carried out of the so-called "dawn stimulation", in which white light of gradually increasing intensity is applied from 4.30am during sleep, peaking at 250 lux after 90 minutes. This has been shown to be effective in placebo comparisons, and more effective than a 30-minute exposure to 10,000 lux starting at 6am. Some experiments have shown however that such bright light is not always more effective than lower intensities. The crucial treatment is to advance the phase of circadian rhythms by whatever means available.

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Integer vitae

I am convinced that much of the unease and violence that is characteristic of our current society, all over the world, can be attributed to a failure of education to perform its task.

One of the objects of education is to confer on a child the ability to make balanced judgements and to tell good from evil. It is not merely the acquisition of factual knowledge but also that of morality. For the run of politicians education is merely to produce citizens who are able to count and work in such a way as to contribute to the manufacture and distribution of marketable goods and services, without making a nuisance of themselves by questioning the rights or wrongs of doing what they are told to do.

Such an attitude produces a climate of irresponsibility, and it also leads to one enormous evil which we face today — the abuse of drugs. To attribute all violence to drug abuse would be simplistic. Yet the reason why people turn to drugs to brighten, as they imagine, their lives, is that they seek relief from oppressive feelings and the inability to make valid and satisfying choices for themselves. After all, there is no point in existing from day to do unless one has some idea of why one is on this earth in the first place. Everything we learn in school and later affects the whole character, and it should teach us the gentle art of discipline in whatever we do or think. Only through disciplined thinking can we become able to meet future crises, solve future problems, and acquire a wide outlook upon the universe of which we are ourselves a part. It is not enough to seek to acquire wealth and status, to become an expert within a narrow field of endeavour.

It was the great poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus in the first century BC who commended in one of his odes: "Integer vitae scelerisque purus", the man of upright life and pure from guilt, as the ideal member of a just and stable society. It is a good idea now and then to recollect what sort of individual we wish to discharge as a finished person from our schools and colleges.

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Pride of place

They who, in their own conceit, feel themselves by their command of lesser folk in such place that pride swells within their breast that undisputed they may gather the crumbs of reward that reflect their selfish desires, they it is who stand unbeknown on the very pinnacle of disaster.
— The Wise Words of William of Worplesdon (circa 1295)