Medicine: Bee Sting

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Two years ago, as Svend Hansen, 40, clipped hedges in an Irvington, N. Y. garden, he was stung on the leg by a bee, fell unconscious. Twelve hours later, Hansen was revived by adrenalin and artificial respiration. Last week, as he worked in the garden, he was stung on the neck by a bee. In 15 minutes Svend Hansen was dead.

Death from a bee sting is not rare. In 1936, some 20 people in New England alone were stung, developed anaphylactic shock, died. Anaphylaxis is the opposite of immunity, results occasionally when a minute injection of some foreign protein, such as bee sting, makes the system extraordinarily susceptible to further injections of the same protein (TIME, Aug. 31, 1936). Nobody knows exactly how bee sting works except that it may either kill or cure.

Medieval doctors used bee stings for arthritis, reasoning that the pain would make patients forget their aching joints. Modern doctors put the bee on patients more scientifically, first anesthetizing an arthritic joint with ethyl chloride, then applying artificial stings. Seventy-three out of 100 cases in New York Hospital were improved, said Dr. Jacques Kroner and associates in Current Medical Digest last month. Most of the cases showing no improvement were of long standing.

Theory of sting-treatment is based on the nonspecific protein principle. Arthritis is due to some poisonous protein, as yet undefined. The body stores up certain protein-digesting compounds which combat all poisonous proteins. An injection of foreign protein stimulates production of more defensive substances or enhances their strength.