The detection of cocaine in hair specimens using micro-plate enzyme immunoassay.

The analysis of hair for drugs of abuse is becoming increasingly popular and is under consideration by the Division of Health and Human Services as a possible alternative or adjunct to urinalysis in workplace programs. The detection of cocaine in human hair using a commercially available micro-plate enzyme immunoassay is described for the first time. Sample size and incubation time were the major variables in the optimization of the method. In order to validate the procedure, the method was applied to 105 consecutive hair samples routinely received into our laboratory. The samples were simultaneously analyzed by the Micro-Plate immunoassay (EIA), as well as our current fluorescence polarization immunoassay (FPIA) procedure and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS). The sensitivity of the EIA and FPIA assays were 75% and 67.8% respectively; specificity 97.4% and 80.5% respectively; and efficiency 91.4 and 77.1% respectively. The Micro-Plate EIA was shown to be a valid alternative to other immunoassay screening methods for the detection of cocaine in hair by demonstrating increased sensitivity, specificity and efficiency over our current technique.     

The detection of cotinine in hydrolyzed meconium samples.

To date, the screening of meconium for the determination of tobacco exposure in newborns has proven difficult. It was hypothesized that cotinine forms reversible Schiff base bonds with free amino functions on proteins, therefore, hydrolysis of meconium would be necessary for the detection of 'free' cotinine. One-hundred-and-two (102) meconium samples received into our laboratory were extracted using a routine non-hydrolysis screening procedure for drugs of abuse. Separate aliquots of the specimens were hydrolyzed and re-extracted according to the same procedure. The results of the two methods were compared using a highly specific cotinine micro-plate enzyme immunoassay procedure (EIA). Of the non-hydrolyzed samples, 33% were positive for cotinine, while 79% of the hydrolyzed samples were cotinine-positive. Common drugs of abuse did not interfere with the analysis. Micro-plate EIA provides a rapid, simple and reliable screening method for the determination of cotinine in meconium following hydrolysis and extraction. In general, the meconium specimens received into our laboratory are from newborns considered to be at risk for post-natal problems due to suspected drug and/or alcohol abuse during pregnancy.     

Reviews

R. W. Davies, The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia 3: The Soviet Economy in Turmoil. 1929–1930. London: Macmillan, 1989, xx+601 pp., £47.50.

Peter Nolan, The Political Economy of Collective Farms: An Analysis of China's Post‐Mao Rural Reforms. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988, viii+259 pp., £29.50.

Adam Zwass, The CMEA: The Thorny Path from Political to Economic Integration. Armonk, NY: M E Sharpe inc., 1989, xiii+268 pp., $45.00.

Szymon Jakubowicz, Wer rettet Polens Wirtschaft? Das Ringen urn die Arbeiterselbstverwaltung. (Who will save Poland's Economy? The Struggle about Workers’ Self‐Management). Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder Taschenbuch Verlag, 1989, 334 pp., DM18.90.

Jim Riordan ed., Soviet Youth Culture. London: Macmillan, 1989, x+148 pp., £27.50 h/b, £9.95 p/b.

Richard Sakwa, Soviet Politics: An Introduction. London: Routledge, 1989, xvi+356 pp., £12.95 p/b.

Walter D. Connor, Socialism's Dilemmas: State and Society in the Soviet Bloc. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988, x+299 pp., $37.00.

R. W. Davies, Soviet History in the Gorbachev Revolution. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan in association with the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham, 1989, viii+232 pp., £29.50 h/b, £7.99 p/b.

Takayuki Ito, ed. Facing Up to the Past: Soviet Historiography under Perestroika. Sapporo: Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University, 1989, 290 pp.

Seweryn Bialer and Michael Mandelbaum, The Global Rivals: The Soviet‐American Contest for Supremacy. London: I. B. Tauri's, 1989, 220 pp., £14.95.

Matthew Evangelista, Innovation and the Arms Race. New York: Cornell University Press, 1988, xvi+ 300 pp., $32.95.

Steven Merritt Miner, Between Churchill and Stalin: The Soviet Union, Great Britain, and the Origins of the Grand Alliance. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1989, 319 pp., $39.60.

Olimpiad S. Ioffe, Soviet Civil Law, ser. Law in Eastern Europe, no. 36. Dordrecht, Boston, MA, Lancaster: Reidel, 1988, ix+382 pp.

Stephen White, Soviet Communism: Programme and Rules. London and New York: Routledge, 1989, vii+141 pp., £25.00.

Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: A History. Toronto, Buffalo, NY, and London: The University of Toronto Press in association with the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1988, xii+666 pp., £35.00, $57.50.

Francesco Benvenuti, The Bolsheviks and the Red Army, 1918–1922, translated by Christopher Woodall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, viii+264 pp., £27.50, $44.50.     

Reviews

Susan Gross Solomon (ed.), Pluralism in the Soviet Union. Essays in Honour of H. Gordon Skilling. London: Macmillan, 1983, xiii + 179 pp. £20.00.

George Yaney. The Urge to Mobilize: Agrarian Reform in Russia, 1861–1930. Urbana, Chicago, London: University of Illinois Press, 1982, xii + 599 pp. £18.75.

Roy Medvedev, All Stalin's Men. Translated by Harold Shukman. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983, x + 184 pp. £8.95.

Robert F. Byrnes (ed.), After Brezhnev: Sources of Soviet Conduct in the 1980s. London: Frances Pinter, 1983, xviii + 457 pp., bibliography and index, h/b £16.50, p/b £6.95.

Basile Kerblay, Modern Soviet Society (translated by Rupert Swyer). London: Methuen, 1983, xxvi + 321 pp. h/b £16.00, p/b £7.95.

Max Hayward, Writers in Russia: 1917–1978. Edited and with an introduction by Patricia Blake. London: Harvill Press, 1983, lxxvi + 340 pp. £7.95.

Dina R. Spechler. Permitted Dissent in the USSR. Novy mir and the Soviet Regime. New York: Praeger, 1982, xxiv + 296 pp. $27.95.

Everett M. Jacobs (ed.), Soviet Local Politics and Government, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983, xiv + 225 pp. £15.00, $28.50.

Alan H. Smith, The Planned Economies of Eastern Europe. London: Croom Helm, 1983, 249 pp. £16.95.

John Löwenhardt, The Soviet Politburo. Translated by Dymphna Clark, Edinburgh: Canongate, 1982, 152 pp. £7.95.

Stephen Clissold, Djilas: the progress of a revolutionary. Introduction by Hugh Setton‐Watson. London: Temple Smith, 1983, 343 pp. £15.00.

Steven L. Burg, Conflict and Cohesion in Socialist Yugoslavia: Political Decision Making Since 1966. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton U. P., 1983, xii + 365 pp. $49.00.

Elizabeth Kridl Valkenier: The Soviet Union and the Third World. New York: Praeger, 1983, 185 pp. $21.95.

Dorothy Atkinson, The End Of The Russian Land Commune, 1905–30. Stanford, Calf.: Stanford UP, 1983, xii + 457 pp. $29.50.

Alain Touraine, et al., Solidarity: Poland 1980–81, Cambridge and Paris: CUP jointly with Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, 1983, xvii + 203 pp. paperback £6.95.     

Masculinity and the Dance of the Dragon: Reading Lovelace Discursively

The exploration and examination of the construction of masculinity is increasingly emerging as an integrated part of the study of gender in society in general, and in the Caribbean in particular. We are constantly in search for new sources of material which tell us about the ways in which men construct their masculinity in Caribbean society. In this paper I draw on the imagery and ideas provided by the literary text. I interrogate the novel The Dragon Can't Dance, written by Trinidadian novelist Earl Lovelace. The writer uses the metaphor of the dragon, the costume donned by the main protagonist Aldrick in the yearly Carnival masquerade, as a mask which disguises the need for Aldrick to confront his own masculinity under poor, urban conditions in Trinidad. In the struggles and confrontations between urban working-class men and women in the community of Calvary in Trinidad, the novelist teases out the different constructions of masculinity in the various characters he portrays. I explore the novel, focusing particularly on the ways in which this construction is embedded in the struggles over issues of identity, ethnicity, reputation and honor. While the novelist is clearly able to read into the mind of the male in society, his renditions of the female are not so incisive. However, this is not a shortcoming as the women, though not as well-rounded characters in the novel, play key roles in the definition and shaping of masculinities. This reading of the novel illustrates that the literary text suggests itself as a critical site for further explorations of the illusive data on gender and especially that on masculinity.