Medicine: Capsules, may 18, 1959

¶ For a crash program to nip a developing polio epidemic, a U.S. Public Health Service team recommends quick inoculation of the unvaccinated with a whopping shot of Salk vaccine—10 cc., or ten times the dose now given in each of three injections. In the New England Journal of Medicine they report no ill effects from such doses in volunteers, and much quicker development of immunity.

¶ If heavy smokers fear lung cancer, they do a good job of covering up, researchers found in a Lansing (Mich.) survey. Most smokers know more than nonsmokers about the cigarette-cancer link, but stubbornly maintain a breezy optimism. Those who have been scared enough to switch to filters are even more illogical: only 20% admit that they think the niters may help to prevent cancer.

¶ Reginald Taylor, 58, got typhoid fever in Australia 30 years ago. Back in Britain after a good recovery, he almost forgot it—until last year, when his three children got sick and Taylor was found to be a male "Typhoid Mary." Fired from his job as a batman at an infantry school, Taylor was forbidden to get near food intended for others, found his employment card marked in warning red, could not get a job. Last month he agreed to the standard operation that too many typhoid carriers refuse (though it does not always work)—removal of the gall bladder. Last week, pronounced typhoid free, Taylor downed a few pints of bitter at the corner local, said: "I feel as if I'd come out of jail."