ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: Bears are strong and agile wild animals that defend themselves, their young ones and their territory, if they feel threatened. Conflicts between humans and bears are common in bear-prevalent areas of the world. Our valley, which is surrounded all around by forests, is a habitat for black bears (U. thiabetanus) only. Maulings inflicted by these black bears are catastrophic events and such attacks have increased considerably in the recent past due to merciless deforestation. The rising incidences of such attacks, especially in maxillofacial region, have urged our department to undertake a study of such attacks and injuries. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The present study is both a retrospective and prospective study of 200 patients of bear maulings who were admitted and treated in the Department of OMFS, Govt. Dental College, Srinagar, from January 2005 to October 2009. RESULTS: Majority of the patients were from villages. Most of them belonged to fourth decade and majority was males. Black bears only were involved in all the encounters. Claws, paws and combination of both, were the used for attack. In majority of cases, no defense was used for the termination of attack. All the patients had soft tissue injury, deep lacerations, facial viscera, eyes, salivary glands and facial nerve commonly involved.
ABSTRACT
This preliminary study reports for the first time that part of the rural population in the Allahabad district and the urban population in the Suklaganj-Kanpur of Unnao district in the Allahabad-Kanpur track of the upper Ganga plain are drinking and using for agricultural irrigation arsenic contaminated water (maximum arsenic concentrations in drinking water and urine are 707 and 1744 microg L(-1) respectively) mostly from shallow hand tube-wells (depth 7.5-40 m) without knowing that these are arsenic contaminated.
