Medicine: Capsules, Jan. 6, 1958

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¶ Public apathy is forcing manufacturers of Salk polio vaccine to destroy hundreds of thousands of doses. About 25 million shots are stockpiled, with little demand during the season of low incidence when the public tends to forget polio. And unused vaccine must be destroyed after six months. Doctors' reminder: anyone beginning a three-shot vaccination series now can finish it before the polio season's summer peak in most of the U.S.

¶ In Australia, reported Health Minister Donald A. Cameron, the polio vaccination program has been a huge success: 90% of all children under 15 have had some vaccine (made in Australia to the Salk formula) and half have had a full three-shot course. Cases in 1957 numbered only 138, compared with an average of 1,600 in the twelve previous years.

¶ Auricular fibrillation, when the heart's upper chambers twitch irregularly and contract too rapidly, is frightening to victims: in brief attacks it may cause a "heart in the mouth" feeling and palpitations; over longer periods it can lead to heart failure. It is also difficult to diagnose because early attacks often pass before a doctor can get there. A unique study of 113 men and women of five generations in one family—compiled by Dr. William L. Gould of Albany, N.Y. and reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine—shows that in an occasional case fibrillation neither causes disability nor shortens life. A tailor who immigrated from Russia in 1891 (and later brought over his parents and ten brothers and sisters) fibrillated for at least 38 years but was fully active until his death at age 94. His father fibrillated at least three years, lived to 84. In all, 22 members of the family have so far developed auricular fibrillation (half of those who have turned 40).