Toxic honey and the march up-country.

This article gives an account of the Greek warrior-historian Xenophon and his Anabasis (The March Up-Country), one of the most famous events in military history. It includes a description of how the Greek soldiers, after reaching apparent safety near the south-eastern Black Sea, were felled by a strange honey that rendered them as if dead for a day. Modern understanding of the toxicology of this honey is given, then an epilogue summarizing the rest of Xenophon's life.

Unexplained muscle swelling in divers.

Muscle swelling in divers may represent a previously unreported form of decompression sickness. It shows marked, brawny swelling of skeletal muscle which clinically most suggests muscular lymphedema in its woody texture to palpation and unresponsiveness to recompression. Four episodes of unexplained muscle swelling in commercial divers are presented, none apparently resulting in muscular injury.

Inherent unsaturation in the treatment of pneumothorax at depth.

In discussing the treatment of pneumothorax under pressure, standard diving medicine publications recommend only the insertion of a chest tube before decompression. However, there are marked difficulties in performing surgery in a typical offshore commercial chamber, and present knowledge of chamber bacteriology indicates there is important risk of serious infection. By contrast, the venerable principle of inherent unsaturation and known experimental data permit the rational and safe use of pressure and oxygen breathing to resolve this problem. This should be the treatment of first preference for, even if it is not effective, no other options are closed off. Two representative cases are presented.