Medicine: Spring Fever

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Old wives' tales hold that sulphur & molasses, forced down squalling young throats in early spring, provides a needed thickening of the blood, thinned down by winter. Farmers' almanacs advise rural readers to drink sassafras tea and rhubarb brews to cleanse the body of winter's ills.

Last week some U.S. citizens were manfully gulping these traditional concoctions. For spring fever was epidemic in the land. In Washington, ex-Farm-Boy Harry Truman sniffed spring flowers (see cut), posed with a sunny smile under sunny Washington skies.

Dr. William F. Petersen, professor of pathology at Illinois University and coauthor of The Patient and the Weather, offered a medical reason for spring fever: "In northern regions, the low ebb of vitality is reached in March and April. Blood pressure is low, blood vessels are tired. Winter has left . . . the body's store of blood proteins, vitamins and the rare minerals . . . low."

When spring comes, increased ultraviolet light invigorates the body; fresh food brings added minerals and vitamins, and the individual picks up. The result is a jerky, uphill climb to summer's expansive wellbeing. Spring fever, says Dr. Petersen, is the irregular cycle of alternating days of elation and fatigue, until the body has regained its pink of condition.