Renfrew Stewart (1 results)

J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiat., 24. - London, British Medical Assiciation, 1961, gr. 8°, pp.346-349, orig. wrappers. Offprint! From the Royal Infirmary, Glasgow. "No longer can a physician remain passive towards a patient who has presented with a cerebrovascular accident, for an intracerebral haematoma is now an operable condition. Moreover a haematoma may be a more common cause of slowly attacking strokes than has been previously thought. Arteriography, which is often a diagnostic necessity, and operation itself, however, are not without risk (Baker, 1960; Bull, Marshall, and Shaw, 1960; McDowell, Schick, Frederick, and Dunbar, 1959; Sedzimir, 1960). The clinician is, therefore, faced with the problem of advising these procedures in patients who arc not dying but may die as a result of them. Were it possible to predict death or survival in the early stages of a cerebrovascular accident, this problem would be solved, for, if it is confidently predicted that a patient is going to die, the physician is free to do nothing or to carry out any treatment no matter how heroic. On the other hand, if it is predicted with confidence that a patient will survive, then the physician must be sure that any potentially dangerous investigation or operation, now no longer excusable as life-saving, must offer substantial benefit in terms of reduction of ultimate disability. The purpose of our investigation was to discover early clinical and E.E.G. evidence which would allow confident predictions of life and death in cerebrovascular accidents. As far as we are aware, such predictions are not possible on the basis of present knowledge." Melville & Renfrew After World War II, Stewart Renfrew was appointed as neurologist to the Royal Infirmary, and Joly Dixon to the Victoria Infirmary, Stobhill and Southern General hospitals.…