Sea Sickness

There are almost as many seasick cures as there are sufferers. Last week Drs. J. Frank Pearcy and Daniel B. Hayden of the University of Chicago Medical School advocated a new one, in the American Medical Association Journal. They had been working on ears and eyes in hospital and laboratory; they noticed that lowering the normal blood pressure by means of sodium nitrite decreased the dizziness and "seasick" feeling of subjects after they had been rapidly rotated. Believing that seasickness is caused by overstimulation of the labyrinth of the ear by the constant changing motion of boats, they decided to give sodium nitrite a public trial. Dr. Hayden had planned a European trip; he made the liner his laboratory. During a tempestuous passage he rounded up 16 tormented travelers. After each had been given a well-known treatment (subcutaneous injections of epinephrine chloride), he started his experiment. To eight he gave three to five grains of sodium nitrite every two hours. All eight were cured after the second dose. The other eight, who received no sodium nitrite, were ill for two days.

Recently Drs. O. Brunns and E. Hornicke in the Muenchener Medizinische Wochenschrift offered a diametrically opposed therapy. Their observations showed that people with high blood pressure rarely suffer from seasickness; that there was a drop in blood pressure at the worst point of the disease. They suggested, therefore, drugs to raise blood pressure.

No drug will help all of the people all of the time. Mothersill's Seasick Remedy guaranteed "in every case" is sometimes efficacious; it contains, as its advertisement asserts, "no cocain;" instead it has 45 per cent chlorbutanol, a cocain substitute often used as a local anesthetic. Wise ones, when seasick, will consult a doctor.