Nexus - 0110 - New Times Magazine-pages

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TIDES OF MEN Science is discovering that men, as well as women, are affected by the moon. According to a British Medical Journal study, men’s bladders block more frequently during New Moon than at other lunar phases. 685 men went to St Mary’s Hospital in Portsmouth with acute urinary retention between August 1985 and July 1988. One : = —— third of the cases occurred within three SAVE THE SPHINX ———— | items have had the consistency of cork; | days of a new moon. Similar findings The Sphinx at Giza & 1000s of Egyptian | previously, wooden coffins had been | were recorded at the Freeman Hospital in tombs are facing a new and dire threatin | recovered intact with inscriptions and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. their desert existence - water and sall | carvings. Salt is already damaging many This lunar pattern “may be due to a Archaeologists say little will be left of | of Egypt’s wall paintings and experts physiological tidal-wave causing an Egypt’s wonders if urgent action is not | believe that without drastic action, none unaccustomed fluid load to be presented taken to arrest effects of a rising water | will remain within a century. E] | to the bladder,” the study found. Ni} table.“We are watching a complete record of more than 4,000 years of history crumble in front of our eyes,” | — LITTLE CAESARS SPREADING — Professor Bennett points out that four says Naguib Kanawati, Professor of | One in six babies in Australia is born by times as many women die during Egyptology at Sydney University. While | caesarian section; a figure widely viewed caesarian operations than in ‘natural’ believing the pyramids are safe... “The | as unacceptabiy high and clear evidence childbirth. Recent Australian statistics Sphinx, however, isa sculpture and if its | of unnecessary medical intervention. | also indicate that home birth is actually features disappear it will be nothing | One-third of these caesarians are | safer than hospital deliveries in general. more than a lump of stone.” automatically performed on women who According to Dr Paul Lancaster, The rise in moisture during the last | had earlier caesarian ‘deliveries’. director of the National Perinatal twenty years has caused more damage : ti Statistics unit at Sydney University, some than during the last four millenia. The obstetricians perform caesarians in 40- construction of the high dam at Aswan 50% of births. made constant irrigation possible along “Consensus studies show that 8-10% the Nile but has caused the water table to is sufficient to meet the needs of western rise. “The water table is now just below society,” he says. Opinion is so divided the surface and the sandstone that some doctors “would like to see a monuments soak it up - it’s like putting 100% caesarian rate.” He reports that one a piece of chalk in water,” says Prof. ee ee Chicago hospital cut its rate from 17% to Kanawati. In early 1988 a 300 kg chunk “There are many repeat cases of | 11% by ensuring detailed reasons for the of stone fell from the Sphinx’s right | caesarians being performed withoutany | operation were recorded and by seeking a shoulder, successfully overcoming the | good evidence that they are necessary,” | second medical opinion in each case. delays to developing a plan to preserve | says Professor Michael Bennett, “The chance of ending up with a the monument. Clinical Director of Paddington’s Royal | caesarian increases significantly if you InMay this year aninternational group | Hospital for Women in Sydney. are privately insured and seeing a of experts met in Cairo to help save the “Some obstetricians still believe ‘once | private obstetrician,” reports Zena Sphinx. They attached a computerised | acaesarian,alwaysacaesarian’.They are | Armstrong, author of Caesarian Birth- A weather station to the body of the Sphinx | wrong - and there is incontrovertible | Reassuring guide for Australian Parents. which will measure all major climatic | evidence to show they are wrong... There “More than 30,000 babies are and pollution effects on the monument. } used to be a financial incentive,” he | delivered by caesarian section every Modern industrial changes to the | replied when asked why the Australian | year in Australia. There is no doubt that atmosphere including acid rain have | rate of caesarians had quadrupled from | many of these caesarians are avoidable taken their toll. ; 4% in the late 1960s to about 17% in the | and that many women and their babies The increased humidity is causing | late 1980s, “Old habits die hard.” An | are being subjected to unnecessary risks organic materials including mummies, | extra Medicare payment was made to | in surgery. Doctors, midwives, hospital wood, clothing and furniture to rot. Inthe | obstetricians performing caesarians until authorities and, above all, parents must past two decades, recovered wooden | August 1987. push for change.” iN} Nexus *10