Medicine: Rough Stuff

The best way to get rid of acne scars, Plastic Surgeon William G. McEvitt of Detroit announced last week, is to rub them down with coarse sandpaper. Acne's disfigurement, Dr. McEvitt reported to the Journal of the American Medical Association, is bad enough for men, but tragic for women. It results simply from "lights and shadows playing on an uneven surface." Acids and dry ice have been used to level the skin; so have mechanical devices such as scalpel blades, razor blades, needles grouped like a currycomb, rough stones, disks and brushes.

Dr. McEvitt was not satisfied with any of these methods, but it took him a long time to screw up enough courage to use sandpaper. He first tried local anesthesia, but found it was not enough. Now he puts his patients into the hospital, gives them a general anesthetic, and sandpapers the whole face (using No. 1½ or No. 2 grades of sandpaper) in a single operation. Bleeding is controlled by pressure. Then petrolatum gauze and a pressure dressing are applied. After ten days the wrappings come off, and the patient's face is usually healed. Local touching up may be done a few months later.

Self-conscious teen-agers are sternly warned against trying the treatment on themselves. Said Dr. McEvitt: "It would be like somebody taking out his gall bladder at home. No one could possibly do it. It would be so terribly painful that he would have to stop in a few seconds."