Drugs: A Killer for All Pains

His brand new painkiller, says France's Dr. Henri Laborit, dampens the aches and pains of arthritis, burns, cancer, childbirth, neuralgia, rheumatism—just about all the ills the flesh is heir to. Such fantastic claims may sound like the spiel of a turn-of-the-century snake-oil peddler, but the medical community has learned to take Dr. Laborit at his word. When he reports on the properties of the compound which he calls Ag 246, he speaks with the authority of a researcher who has already been credited with important drug discoveries.

It was Laborit who ferreted...