Medicine: No Sniffles in Pleasantville?

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Hoping to improve its citizens' teeth, Newburgh, N.Y. is fluorinating its water supply. Last week another such town-wide test was announced: Pleasantville, N.Y. (pop. 4,357) home of The Reader's Digest, plans to try ultraviolet lamps in its three schools, seven churches and one movie to see if the rays will reduce colds, measles, mumps, etc. Nearby Mount Kisco, about the same size—and lampless—will compare notes with Pleasantville for the three years the experiment runs.

Under the interested eyes of its sponsors—the County Health Department, the Milbank Memorial Fund, the University of Pennsylvania and General Electric, which makes the lamps—the Pleasantville test is being supervised by Dr. Mildred Wells. Dr. Wells has doubts about how much good the lamps will do. She knows that children can confuse the issue by swapping diseases in stores, at play, in their homes.