Medicine: For Young Folks

When a baby contentedly sucks his thumb after meals, don't slap his hand or bind it with tape. Leave him alone, says Dr. William Siddon Langford of Manhattan. Contrary to the beliefs of most parents and pediatricians, thumb-sucking in infants is a harmless pleasure. No scientist has ever proved, said Dr. Langford, talking to the American Academy of Pediatrics last week, that thumb-sucking 1) introduces germs into tonsils and stomach, 2) stimulates harmful sexual activity, or 3) causes receding jaws and buckteeth. Thumb-sucking may push milk teeth slightly out of line, but if it is stopped before permanent teeth appear, no faces are spoiled. Parents who try to break nursing babies of the habit only get them riled, which may have serious psychological effects. Thumb-sucking in school children is a different matter, said Dr. Langford, and is usually a danger sign: fatigue, illness or frustration.

Other tips about young folks presented by pediatricians at their Manhattan meeting:

Infected Maids. Three serious diseases—tuberculosis, syphilis and typhoid fever—are usually transmitted to children by their elders, said Dr. Fairfax Hall of New Rochelle, N. Y. He viewed with alarm the fact that 18,000 U. S. schoolteachers have tuberculosis, that no laws prevent them from spreading their infections in classrooms. Dr. Hall urged the Academy to plump for examinations of teachers, to educate parents to insist on health cards for domestics. In wealthy Westchester County, N. Y., where 25% of high-school children had a positive tuberculin reaction, an organized campaign of adult health examinations, at the low price of $7 a person a year, .was started by 500 physicians last spring.

Poliomyelitis. Next month the greatest scourge of childhood, poliomyelitis (infantile paralysis), will make its yearly descent on the U. S. To parents who are nervous about bringing their children to the New York World's Fair, Dr. John L. Rice, New York City Health Commissioner, was reassuring: "In the years 1937 and 1938 the incidence of the disease was very low and this year, up to the present time, it is even lower. No one can predict the future of poliomyelitis accurately, but based on our present knowledge, no one need fear infantile paralysis in New York City this year."