Medicine: Rice, Salt & Parenthood

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Population planners and would-be controllers of human fertility have been stymied by an economic factor: many of the world's most densely packed peoples are so poor that they cannot afford the cheapest contraceptives. Last week the A.M.A. Journal reported that the planners' answer may have been found in ingredients ready to hand in the poorest mud hut.

Dr. Clarence J. Gamble of Milton, Mass, was testing 70 commercial contraceptive jellies and creams when he remembered that common salt was reputed to be a good sperm-killer. Dr. Gamble tried it in the test tube and it worked. He combined it with several jellies and it still worked. Finally he hit upon rice flour as a cheap base material, widely available.

All that is necessary, Dr. Gamble believes, is to boil a handful of rice flour in a pan of water for half an hour with enough salt to make a 10% solution, and let it cool. The resulting jelly is now being tested by doctors in Japan, India and Pakistan.