Medicine: Capsules, Aug. 6, 1951

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¶ Around Richmond, Va., health workers sprayed DDT, poured oil on ponds and waterholes to stem a mosquito-borne outbreak of eastern encephalitis (brain inflammation) which started a scare. Two encephalitis deaths were proved, four more suspected. ¶ New U.S. polio cases reported last week totaled 773, up 30% over the week before—and not far behind the 802 tallied in the same week last year. ¶ The German-founded Schering Corp. (run by the Office of Alien Property) became the world's second producer of cortisone,* began distribution of Cortogen, a preparation for eye diseases. ¶ A Navy doctor gave a rule of thumb for judging the prospects of atomic-radiation victims: 1) all who do not vomit should live; 2) those who go on vomiting will die; 3) half of those who stop vomiting within a few hours will live. ¶ Britain's National Health Service started disciplinary action against a dentist who did 14 fillings in 55 minutes—on the ground that he was too fast to be good. ¶ As the number of old people has increased, medicine was ready with a word: geriatrics, a branch of medicine dealing with the ailments of the aged. But geriatricians will be few & far between, says Temple University's Dr. Richard A. Kern. "No one will admit that he is old until long after that fact is obvious to everyone else . . . He who announces the limitation of his practice to geriatrics will probably starve, "† ¶ Three doctors at the Cleveland Clinic think they have found the connection between nervous tension and high blood pressure. They found that brain and nerve tissue can produce a hormone-like substance which gets into the blood, raises its pressure. The antidote: a drug called hydrazino-phthalazine. The discovery also explains why surgery (cutting the sympathetic nerve) sometimes fails to relieve high blood pressure—it doesn't always get to the root of the trouble.