Sir Joseph Barcroft: one victorian physiologist's contributions to a half century of discovery

Longo, Lawrence D.

doi:10.1113/jp270078

Cited by 16 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…14 It was shown that evolution has given the lungs, blood, and placenta of a pregnant woman and the brain of a fetal an adaptation to hypoxia. [13][14][15][16][17] However, there is no mention of a functional test for fetal resistance to acute intrauterine hypoxia. 14,16,17 Official obstetrics and gynecology do not have a standard functional test to assess the reserves of adaptation of the fetus to intrauterine hypoxia before delivery.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A drowning fetus sends a distress signal, which is an indication for a Caesarean section

Urakov¹,

Уракова²

2020

IJOGR

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The review is devoted to the prevention of neonatal asphyxia by assessing the reserves of adaptation of the fetus to intrauterine hypoxia in the second half of pregnancy and then choosing a safe type of delivery. The history of development of a new functional test that provides a non-invasive assessment of fetal adaptation reserves to intrauterine hypoxia using sonography is shown. It is proposed to use ultrasound to determine the duration from the beginning of apnea in a pregnant woman to the appearance of a distress signal, the fetus inside the uterus when its reserves of adaptation to hypoxia are exhausted. If a distress signal appears earlier than 10 seconds from the start of breath retention of pregnant woman is recommended to refuse of physiology birth and is offered delivery by Cesarean section.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A drowning fetus sends a distress signal, which is an indication for a Caesarean section

Urakov¹,

Уракова²

2020

IJOGR

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“…Less Death from COVID-19 at High Altitude legacy of the colonialist mentality of the 20th century [28][29][30] , and must be radically changed in the minds of new physicians and researchers; highaltitude physiology is a heritage of biological richness that hides key secrets for understanding life and discovering new cures. Our work is a wonderful example of the latter, where high-altitude hypoxia has been a key factor in protecting high-altitude populations from a pandemic that has been devastating worldwide.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19 Mortality Is Attenuated at High Tropical and Subtropical Altitude: An Observational Study of a Database Covering Five Latin American Countries

DeUrioste,

Reyes,

Sanchez

et al. 2023

MRAJ

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The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the SARS-COV-2 virus, has had devastating consequences worldwide. Remarkably, the incidence, virus transmission capacity, and severity of COVID-19 have been reported to be significantly decreased in high-altitude human populations. The clinical significance of these findings is enormous, as they suggest that permanent inhabitants of high altitudes have developed adaptive protective changes against certain pathologies. However, these observations have been overshadowed by contradictory reports on the COVID-19 mortality rate at high altitude, ascribed to low population densities. These interpretations, however, fail to consider that the environmental conditions of high-altitude regions of the temperate and tropical geographical zones are radically different from each other. Contrary to common thought, the conditions of high-altitude areas of countries within the tropical zone are so benign that they have favored the growth and development of densely populated cities. In this work, we use data from a COVID-19 database covering five Latin American countries in the tropical and subtropical geographic zone that corresponded to the period between the start of the pandemic and the end of 2020, when no vaccine was yet available. Our results reveal that residing above 1,000 m in tropical countries was a protective factor against COVID-19 mortality. Interestingly, this protective effect was independent of population size. The findings presented here, and those from other similar studies, substantiate the need for more research to reveal the secrets of the physiology of permanent high-altitude residents. In conclusion, our findings clearly demonstrate that the high-altitude environment in tropical and subtropical geographic zones significantly contributes to the decreased mortality impact of the SARS-COV-2 virus in high-altitude-exposed populations.

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“…Scientists and historians of science today usually locate the beginnings of fetal physiology—as a well-defined field with its research questions, methodology and animals—in the 1930s Cambridge, when Joseph Barcroft, after a successful career in adult respiratory and cardiovascular physiology, took his interest in oxygen absorption from adult to fetal bodies (Giussani et al, 2016 ; Longo, 2016 ; Buklijas, 2014 ). 3 Barcroft died in 1947, shortly after the publication of the foundational text of this new field, Researches on pre-natal life .…”

Section: Physiological Approaches To the Fetal Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

A fetus in the world: Physiology, epidemiology, and the making of fetal origins of adult disease

Buklijas,

Al-Gailani

2023

HPLS

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Since the late 1980s, the fetal origins of adult disease, from 2003 developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD), has stimulated significant interest in and an efflorescence of research on the long-term effects of the intrauterine environment. From the start, this field has been interdisciplinary, using experimental animal, clinical and epidemiological tools. As the influence of DOHaD on public health and policy expanded, it has drawn criticism for reducing the complex social and physical world of early life to women’s reproductive bodies as drivers of intergenerational ills. This paper explains this narrowing of focus in terms of a formative and consequential exchange between David Barker, the British epidemiologist whose work is credited with establishing the field, and the discipline of fetal physiology. We suggest that fetal physiologists were a crucial constituency of support for Barker’s hypothesis about early life origins of disease. Their collaborations with Barker helped secure and sustain the theory amid considerable controversy. The trajectory of DOHaD and its focus on the maternal body can be understood, we argue, as a consequence of this alliance, which brought together two distinct conceptualizations of the intrauterine environment, one from epidemiology and the other from fetal physiology. Along the way, we trace the histories of these conceptualizations, both of which were products of mid-to-late twentieth century British science, and show how Barker’s early emphasis on social and economic conditions was superseded by a narrower focus on physiological mechanisms acting upon the autonomous fetus.

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Sir Joseph Barcroft: one victorian physiologist's contributions to a half century of discovery

Cited by 16 publications

References 73 publications

A drowning fetus sends a distress signal, which is an indication for a Caesarean section

A drowning fetus sends a distress signal, which is an indication for a Caesarean section

COVID-19 Mortality Is Attenuated at High Tropical and Subtropical Altitude: An Observational Study of a Database Covering Five Latin American Countries

A fetus in the world: Physiology, epidemiology, and the making of fetal origins of adult disease

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