Deliberate and accidental self-harm.

One of the great privileges of editing a journal is seeing how, through the peer review process, a journal issue often develops a subject theme without much help from the editorial staff. This issue contains three stark papers on a topical area of medicine – psychiatry – and particularly the areas of addiction, suicide and death. The incidence of suicide has been rising steadily in Northern Ireland and Largey et al1 show how hanging – particularly in young males, is on the increase. This is mirrored by the increase in drug dependency and the perceived decline of values in society. Lucas2 shows how nearly 15% of electrocutions have been suicides – again mostly males, the remainder being accidental, and there is a warning here for DIY enthusiasts (of either sex) to be careful about electrical safety. The good news, however is that opioid dependency treatment is showing increased efficacy with improvements in dependency and a reduction in physical, psychological and social problems3.

THE ULSTER MEDICAL JOURNAL DIGITAL ARCHIVE

Searching the entire scanned archive of the Ulster Medical Journal for suicide and self harm, (which is now complete on Pub Med Central and includes volumes 1–74 (1932–2005) in addition to other back content and prospective issues from 20054), produces 27 relevant articles. You may be interested to note that the use of Bromide of ammonium, which was cutting edge treatment in ‘the depressive phase of Manic-Depressive insanity’ as described by Robert Thompson5 in an excellent review in 1941, has now been superseded by more evidence based treatments (figure 1).

Fig 1

First page of the review by Robert Thompson from 1941.

TRADITIONAL CURES

One area where the evidence base is sadly lacking is in alternative medical therapies and traditional cures. This issue attempts to redress that imbalance and in time for the festive season, provides evidence that although an eel skin bandage may not help sprains sustained during the season6, those of you who added garlic to your turkey stuffing may now be reaping the benefit as it now appears to have some potent antibacterial and antifungal properties7.

We thank all our reviewers for their help during 2008 and for all of you for sending in particularly high quality manuscripts this year - causing the acceptance bar to be raised to a higher standard than ever.

We wish you all a happy and successful 2009!