Medicine: Capsules, Oct. 17, 1955

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¶ To combat a polio outbreak in Pearl Harbor, the Navy started inoculating some 22,000 married officers, sailors and marines and their families in the first mass Salk immunization of adults. So far, 19 people have been stricken, the majority of them with paralytic polio, and one pregnant service wife has died. Dr. Robert S. Poos, head of the Navy's Preventive Medicine Unit at Pearl Harbor, blames the outbreak on the mixing up of "new susceptibles and carriers from all over the world," wants to see the Salk vaccine made one of the compulsory shots given to servicemen and their dependents before leaving for Hawaii.

¶ The National Cancer Institute announced results of a 20-year study of cancer incidence and survival in Connecticut. In twelve years, the overall survival rate of males with cancer increased from 12% to 20%, and of females from 19% to 32%. Chief reason: better treatment of cancer of the rectum, colon and cervix. However, the survival rate in the test period for ovary, brain, esophagus, lung and stomach cancer did not improve.

¶ Dr. Thomas B. Fitzpatrick and colleagues at the University of Oregon's Medical School report that a drug called 8-methoxypsoralen (8-MOP for short), used for treatment of skin blemishes as long ago as old Egypt, also increases the skin's tanning ability. When taken in small precise doses during carefully timed exposure, 8-MOP will permit users to get a tan without going through a painful burning stage. The effect of 8-MOP is not protective, Dr. Fitzpatrick warns, but speeds up the effects of the sun; large doses will produce a painful burn.