A new Triassic procolophonoid reptile and its implications for procolophonoid survivorship during the Permo-Triassic extinction event.

A reptile specimen from the Lystrosaurus Assemblage Zone of the Beaufort Group, lowermost Triassic of South Africa, represents a new procolophonoid parareptile. Sauropareion anoplus gen. et sp. nov. is identified as the sister taxon of Procolophonidae in a phylogenetic analysis of procolophonoids. Stratigraphic calibration of the most parsimonious tree reveals that four of the six procolophonoid lineages originating in the Permian Period extended into the succeeding Triassic Period. This relatively high taxic survivorship (67%) across the Permo-Triassic boundary strongly suggests that procolophonoids were little if at all affected by the mass extinction event that punctuated the end of the Palaeozoic Era (ca. 251 million years ago).

Unusual case of caudal duplication (dipygus).

We report the case of a dipygus diagnosed by sonography in the second trimester that had 6 lower extremities, double external male genitalia, a megabladder, 3 dilated ureters, and a polycystic right and a pelvic left kidney. This complex malformation represents a rare type of caudal duplication.

[The use of alfatesine in the treatment of epilepsy (author's transl)]. / Effets de l'alfatésine sur l'état de mal épileptique. Rapport préliminaire.

7 patients (aged 15 months-72 years) were treated by intravenous infusion of alfatesine in varying dose depending on age and body weight. Treatment was effective in 6 of the 7 patients, 4 of whom had previously derived no benefit from standard treatment with benzodiazepines. Intravenous injection in 2 cases only increased the interval between seizures from 3-12 minutes to 25-40 minutes. No major side-effects were observed.