Patients' reactions to psychiatric consultation.

Physicians are often concerned that patients will resent a request for psychiatric consultation. To investigate this problem, 60 patients undergoing psychiatric consultation in a general hospital were inverviewed 24 hours after the consultation. Nearly two thirds of these patients believed that the consultation was beneficial. Patients' attitudes were independent of their demographic characteristics, reason for referral, and hospital service involved. Patients with long-term illnesses more often had positive attitudes than patients with short-term illnesses. Patients who were initially hostile or ambivalent usually had positive attitudes 24 hours later. Substance abusers and patients who denied clearly recognizable psychiatric disorders often did not value the consultation. Even so, their physicians frequently believed that the consultation was useful. We attribute the positive attitudes of patients in our study largely to the referring physicians' preparing them for psychiatric consultation.

Instability effects in diffusion analyses of antimicrobial activity.

Diameter reductions accompanying preincubation, and funnel-shaped diffusion zones from agar wells, readily demonstrate chemical and physical instability of preparations in antimicrobial analyses.

Determination of untreated whole-milk effects on in vitro antibacterial activity.

The effect of fresh whole milk without pasteurization or other pretreatment on in vitro antibacterial activity of selected compounds was determined in broth dilution. The milk was collected by hand directly from dairy goats, or by syringe or cannula from bovine quarters showing low bacterial counts. Antibacterial activity was determined in 50% (v/v) milk-broth medium against sensitive mastitis-etiologic strains of Streptococcus agalactiae and Staphylococcus aureus. The indicator salt 2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride was incorporated in the milk broth medium to determine inoculum growth. Contaminant interference was circumvented through early as well as late readings and comparisons with uninoculated control tubes, with and without the test compounds. Application of the method with more than 75 compounds, including nitrofurans, antibiotics, and other chemicals uncovered marked degrees of milk interference. The method warrants routine use among preliminary screens to relate in vitro with in vivo observations of antimicrobial activity. Similar procedures may be used with serum, skim milk, or mastitis-milk media for separating effects due to protein, lipid, or other elements in product evaluation.