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Several recent studies document the declining use of osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) in clinical practice. In this article, the authors contend that developing new teaching materials based on the mastery learning approach can augment time-tested methods of teaching OMT and help to stop or reverse this decline. The Spencer technique for shoulder manipulation is used to demonstrate the development and evaluation of OMT mastery learning materials. These materials could be developed as part of a progressive teaching sequence requiring increasing diagnostic acumen, palpatory skill, and therapeutic subtlety. Such a program could be used throughout osteopathic medical training and for continuing medical education to increase skills and confidence in the use of OMT.

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To evaluate interexaminer agreement on palpatory diagnostic findings, we compared interexaminer results, patient disability self-evaluations, and assessment of patients' progress by referring physicians. Three examiners (two clinicians and a third-year osteopathic medical student fellow) monitored patients' progress using negotiated examination procedures. The patients were examined independently by each examiner at each of eight weekly visits. Patients completed a disability assessment form at each visit, and the referring physicians recorded changes in their patients' condition. The patients' disability self-rating and examiner test results did not show clear correlation. There was a 62.2% agreement between the two physician examiners when the general descriptors "improvement," "no change," or "aggravation" were used. The student examiner's agreement with the clinician examiners was 60.2% and 51.8%. Interexaminer agreement of findings from osteopathic testing procedures appears to depend on general clinical experience and specific experience with the testing procedures.

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The Spencer technique is a standardized series of shoulder treatments with broad application in diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis. The evolution of this technique is traced from 1916 to date to try to identify factors in the development of manipulative methods. Few suggestions about the basic steps to be followed in developing any new manipulative technique were seen. Of chief importance were changes in sequence, the addition of steps, and the combination of one technique with another, as in the addition of muscle-energy methods to each step. One change, accidentally introduced in the 1970s, displaced a critical step in the procedure. The principal element guiding the development of the Spencer technique appears to be clinical necessity interpreted in terms of anatomy and pathology.

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There is need for specific terminology for osteopathic findings, including the findings in postural examination. A static test for laterally transposed pelvis is sometimes critical to the establishment of a diagnosis of postural imbalance, particularly in the minor forms of this important clinical entity. There is need for a word or phrase that identifies this clinical finding and nothing else. The phrase laterally transposed pelvis is nominated to indicate a specific finding in the static evaluation of pelvic position in the frontal (coronal) plane in relation to the vertical extension of the midheel line (sagittal plane). The definition of laterally transposed pelvis is: With the patient standing, knees fully extended bilaterally and the feet together on a flat horizontal surface, the median (midsagittal) plane of the pelvis is observed to lie laterally to the vertically extended midheel line (median/midsagittal plane).

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A high accuracy wavelength encoding fiber optic sensor is shown to display surprisingly little sensitivity to temperature or optical source drift. Average measurement error of 0.1 % full scale has been demonstrated over a displacement range of 10 mm.

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Gene therapy, pre-natal diagnosis, genetically altered bacteria, patenting new life forms: these are all outgrowths from the development of genetics. Our focus will be on the moral issues engendered by some of the genetic techniques which are now so well integrated into clinical medicine. The section on genetic counseling is meant to show the most frequent moral problems encountered as they might really occur. Genetic screening is presented as a mix of preventive medicine and aid for genetic counseling. Genetic engineering is discussed in the context of evolution and human needs and desires.

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Seven Azospirillum strains induced more deformation of root hairs of wheat than did strains of Rhizobium leguminosarum, Azotobacter chroococcum, or Escherichia coli. Azospirillum sp. strain Sp245 caused the most deformation. Strain Sp245 (isolated from surface sterile roots of wheat) and strain Sp7 (isolated from the rhizosphere of a forage grass) were compared with regard to their effects on root hair deformation, their attachment to roots, and their effects on the growth of four wheat cultivars. The amount of deformation caused by the two strains in the four cultivars increased in the following order: cv. Tobari, cv. Tonari, cv. BH1146, cv. Lagoa. Strain Sp245 attached to the roots of all cultivars in low numbers, and attachment did not increase with time (up to 48 h). Strain Sp7 attached in higher numbers, and attachment increased with time. Inoculation of the four cultivars of wheat had pronounced effects on root mass measured at maturity. The magnitude of the effects in the four cultivars increased in the following order: Tobari, Tonari, BH1146, Lagoa; these effects were progressively more positive for strain Sp245 and progressively more negative for strain Sp7. Concentrations of N in wheat did not vary substantially between cultivars or strains. Concentrations of K and P did not vary substantially between cultivars but did vary between strains, Sp245 effecting increases and Sp7 effecting decreases.

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Facultatively anaerobic bacteria, capable of fixing N2 anaerobically or at low O2 concentrations, were isolated from the gastrointestinal tracts of temperate (Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis) and tropical (Tripneustes ventricosus) sea urchins. Morphological and biochemical characteristics, as well as the guanine plus cytosine content of their DNA (45.9 and 48.4 mol%), place these isolates in the genus Vibrio Pacini 1865 in the family Vibrionaceae. Members of this family have not previously been shown to fix N2. These isolates are not identical to any described species in the Vibrio genus and can be distinguished by a combination of biochemical and physiological traits.

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Earlier studies indicated that bacteria responsible for nitrogenase activity of some grasses are located inside the roots. Those studies were conducted with excised roots in which a long, unexplained "lag phase" occurred before initiation of nitrogenase activity. When hydroponically maintained Spartina alterniflora Loisel. was incubated in a two-compartment system with acetylene, ethylene was produced following, at most, a 2-hour lag in both the upper (shoot) and lower (roots + water) phases. Ethylene production in the upper phase not attributable to leaf-associated acetylene-reducing activity or to diffusion of ethylene from around the roots is considered to represent "endorhizal acetylene-reducing activity," the internally produced ethylene diffusing into the upper phase via the lacunae. Ethylene produced in the lower phase is designated "exorhizal acetylene-reducing activity." The endorhizal acetylene-reducing activity, in comparison to exorhizal activity, was relatively insensitive to additions of HgCl(2), NH(4)Cl, or carbon sources to the lower phase. Post-lag acetylene-reducing activity of roots excised from plants growing in soil responded to additions in a manner similar to that of endorhizal acetylene-reducing activity, whereas post-lag acetylene-reducing activity of rhizosphere soil responded in a manner similar to that of exorhizal acetylene-reducing activity.

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A microaerophilic nitrogen-fixing bacterium was isolated from surface-sterilized roots of Spartina alterniflora Loisel growing in a Nova Scotian salt marsh. It is a small curved rod and is motile with a single polar flagellum. Metabolism is respiratory. Organic and amino acids, but not carbohydrates, serve as carbon and energy sources. The guanine + cytosine content of its deoxyribonucleic acid is 32.1 +/- 1.0 mol%. Based upon morphological and biochemical characteristics this organism is assigned to the genus Camphlobacter Sebald and Veron 1963. It is distinguishable from other campylobacters by the presence of nitrogenase and urease, by the production of pigment from tryptophan, and by a combination of other biochemical traits. The association of this organism with plant roots further distinguishes it from other campylobacters which commonly inhabit animal, including human, tissues.

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Roots of field-grown tropical maize, Panicum maximum Jacq. and Digitaria decumbens Stent., and of sorghum and wheat grown in monoxenic culture with the diazotroph Spirillum lipoferum (syn. Azospirillum spp.) were examined for tetrazolium-reducing bacteria following incubation of roots in a malate-phosphate buffer-2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride medium. Bacteria were observed between and in cells of the cortex, in intercellular spaces between the cortex and endodermis, in xylem cells, and in and between pith cells. In maize, colonization of the inner cortex and stele appears to occur in the absence of significant bacterial colonization or collapse of outerlying tissues. Bacteria in the stele remained viable after a 6-h treatment of roots with chloramine-t, indicating that the endodermis was intact. Infection of the inner cortex and stele appears to occur initially in branches, and then to spread longitudinally into main roots. Inter- and intra-cellular infections of the cortex were observed in monoxenic systems. Tetrazolium reduction and prominent crystal formation was not specific for diazotrophic bacteria, but S. lipoferum was isolated from surface-sterilized roots, and S. lipoferum-like organisms were observed in the endorhizosphere. A correlation of inner cortex and stele infections with the presence of branches appears to explain previous observations that excised roots of grasses exhibiting high nitrogenase activity are characteristically branched roots with an intact cortex.

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