Faculty Bibliography

Nevertheless, the death rate from the condition is ''unacceptably high,'' according to the report by the Rochester researchers. The American Heart Association announced the findings of the study today, and the researchers are to present the paper to the meeting Monday. Many people with abdominal aortic aneurysms also have serious associated heart disease from the underlying arteriosclerosis process. As a result, some doctors believe that aneurysm surgery may not be advisable for such patients and that the decision to operate must be made by evaluating the risks of surgery and rupture case by case. Common Symptoms Cited Because patients with ruptured aneurysms are treated for much longer periods in intensive care units, the costs of their care was found to be much greater than doing the surgery electively. The researchers calculated that for the years 1980 and 1981, the mean cost, excluding physician fees, was $18,223 for emergency surgery and $10,114 for elective surgery

The ailment is Huntington's disease, or Huntington's chorea, a fatal nervous system disorder that destroys the mind and motor function. It is also called Woody Guthrie disease because the folk singer died from it in 1967. When he began, Dr. [James F. Gusella] said, he had no idea which of the 46 chromosomes carried the gene for Huntington's disease. But by using DNA probes and by collaborative research with Dr. Susan L. Naylor of Roswell Park Memorial Institute in Buffalo, he found a DNA segment with distinctive patterns on chromosome 4. Because the segment was close to the Huntington's disease gene, he could ''mark'' its presence. The marker in this case is a continuous stretch of 17,000 among the billions of DNA units in the cell, he said

The ailment is Huntington's disease, or Huntington's chorea, a fatal nervous system disorder that destroys the mind and motor function. It is also called Woody Guthrie disease because the folk singer died from it in 1967

''We have done everything we can,'' someone says. ''Let's take it out and look at it.'' ''Yoshi, thank you, your diagnosis is correct,'' Dr. [Don B. Olsen] says. ''We're going to make this work yet.'' ''I've always wanted to try this combination,'' Dr. Olsen says. As laughter fills the operating room, Dr. Olsen says: ''Let's go for it.''

''The Human Body'' is intended to help correct the situation by allowing the reader to discover what happens inside the body by manipulating three- dimensional, movable illustrations of the workings of our anatomy. It is a pop-up book, and in one of the six double-page spreads you can look into the depths of the body much as a surgeon does in the operating room. In the spread illustrating the anatomy from neck to thighs, the viewer can peel off layers of muscle and bone to see where the intestines and other organs lie. You can pull various tabs to flex the biceps muscles in the arm or make the eardrum vibrate

Dr. [Chase N. Peterson] called it ''a useful pause'' because ''this is such a conspicuous case internationally as well as on our campus that the I.R.B. has been understandably cautious'' in considering approval for the second case. The university, Dr. Peterson said, ''has leaned over backward not to impose itself on the I.R.B. because we have not wanted to give any appearance of pressure.'' Dr. [John A. Bosso] acknowledged that the process had been much slower than expected and attributed blame for the delays ''to both sides.'' He added, ''We probably didn't employ the right data-gathering techniques, and Dr. DeVries's group hasn't supplied us with what we have been asking for.'' Dr. Albert R. Jonsen, an ethicist at the University of California Medical School at San Francisco and an architect of the institutional review board system, said at the Alta conference that a decade ago national commissions had ''backed off defining a number of the issues'' that had troubled the review board at the University of Utah. Dr. Jonsen said the commission had resisted ''strong pressure to come out with very elaborate rules, regulations and procedures for I.R.B.'s'' because it was premature to do so. He said it was time to re- evaluate the roles of review boards because the Utah board was ''asked to fly a 747 with Wright Brothers parts.''

In recent years, the Nobel committee has often named up to three winners for the medical category. Committee members said the award went to Dr. [Barbara McClintock] alone because she published by herself. They described her as ''a loner,'' but a scientist who remained current with modern biology. One member recalled that when he arrived at 5 P.M. to visit Dr. McClintock at her laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor, she said, ''Excuse me for being hoarse, but I have not yet used my vocal cords today.'' In the late 1940's and 50's, Dr. McClintock discovered ''mobile genetic elements,'' now sometimes called ''jumping genes,'' whose precise alignment along the strands of chromosomes can be transposed. Chromosomes are bundles of hereditary information in both animals and plants that determine future cell construction and function. At a news conference after the announcement, members of the Nobel committee called attention several times to the extraordinary length of time it took for scientists to recognize the significance of both [Gregor Mendel]'s research and Dr. McClintock's work. They credited Dr. McClintock with ''great ingenuity and intellectual stringency.''

Although Dr. [James W. Curran] said he did not expect a quick solution to the AIDS epidemic, he did foresee ''a lot of progress'' soon. According to Dr. Curran, most experts now believe AIDS is caused by a transmissible agent, presumably a virus, although he recognizes that there are some who believe in a noninfectious cause of AIDS. Dr. Curran said he himself believed a retrovirus was the best bet for the cause of AIDS. As head of the AIDS task force, he said that researchers had to follow a law in medicine known as the Willie Sutton law, after the famous bank robber. Asked once why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton replied: ''Because that's where the money is.'' ''Where should we put our money?'' Dr. Curran asked, adding: ''Where would Willie Sutton go? He would go with retroviruses, I think, right now.''

When the same doctor repeated the measurements, he found that the early rises and subsequent falls were similar during both visits. That observation suggested that ''suppression of the alarm reaction may take several visits,'' the researchers said. Pointing to the risks of overlooking the phenomenon, Dr. Giuseppe Mancia said that ''the current trend toward treating so-called mild hypertension is likely to extend treatment (and its disadvantages) to a large section of subjects whose blood pressure rises to the mild hypertensive levels during measurements only.'' By the 10th minute of the doctor's visit, both the systolic and diastolic blood pressures varied, some being higher than, some similar to, and some lower than the reference values before the doctor's visit. The pulse also sped up. But the researchers found that the rise in pulse rate correlated poorly with the size of the blood pressure rise

The problem has become so nettlesome that the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, which is a Harvard teaching hospital, felt it had to post signs in its elevators recently saying: ''Hospital staff are reminded that patient information should not be discussed in public areas.'' James P