Childhood polyarteritis nodosa: a clinical diagnosis.

A six-year old boy presented with dry gangrene of toes and fingers with hypertension with no other systemic abnormalities. He had persistently high inflammatory parameters, was diagnosed as childhood classic polyarteritis nodosa and showed improvement with immunosuppressants along with antihypertensives. Toe gangrene required amputation in view of superadded infection.

Removal of phenol and chlorophenols from water by coir pith carbon: equilibrium and rate studies.

Batch mode studies were conducted to study the removal of phenol, 2,4,6-Trichlorophenol (TCP) and Pentachlorophenol (PCP) from aqueous solution on coir pith carbon by adsorption process under varying experimental conditions such as agitation time, adsorbent dose, pH and temperature. Kinetics of adsorption obeyed second order rate equation and the rate constant was found to be in the range 0.0098-0.0672, 0.0949-0.8801 and 0.172-0.305 g/mg/min for phenol, TCP and PCP respectively. Equilibrium adsorption data follow Langmuir isotherm for phenol and PCP and the adsorption capacities were found to be 48.3 mg and 3.7 mg/g, respectively. For TCP, adsorption followed Freundlich isotherm only. Acidic pH was favorable for the adsorption of all the chlorophenols. Studies on pH effect and desorption show that chemisorption seems to play a major rule in the adsorption process. The positive values of H0 24.99, 18.69, and 8.907 kJ/mol for phenol, TCP and PCP respectively, confirm the endothermic nature of adsorption.

Antibacterial and antidiarrhoeal effects of alkaloids of Holarrhena antidysenterica WALL.

The alkaloids from the ethanolic extract of H. antidysenterica seeds were evaluated for their antibacterial activity against clinical isolates of enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) in vitro, and their antidiarrhoeal activity on castor oil-induced diarrhoea in rats, in vivo. The plasmid DNA, whole cell lysate and outer membrane protein profile of a clinical isolate of EPEC was determined in presence of alkaloids of H. antidysenterica. The disc diffusion and agar well diffusion methods were used to evaluate the antibacterial efficacy. The alkaloids showed strong antibacterial activity against EPEC strains. In castor oil-induced diarrhoea, alkaloids reduced the diarrhoea with decrease in the number of wet faeces in pretreated rats at a dose of 200-800 mg/kg. The loss of plasmid DNA and suppression of high molecular weight proteins were observed on alkaloids treatment. Taking into account the multiple antibiotic resistance of EPEC, the results suggest usefulness of alkaloids of H. antidysenterica seeds as antibacterial and antidiarrhoeal agents.