Physiological Congress

Harvard goodies dusted in the dormitories, wiped the windows, made the beds last week to room properly about 500 foreign physiologists and their families who joined with about the same number of U. S. and Canadian physiologists in the 13th International Physiological Congress. The congressmen met for a first get-together session in Harvard's Memorial Hall's fusty, amphitheatrical Sanders Theatre, with twilight filtering on them through stained glass. William Henry Howell, scholar, researcher and executive, had the honor of being the Congress president. No one grudged him the position for Dr. Howell, 69, director of Johns Hopkins school of hygiene and public health, has been eminent in U. S. physiology for more than a generation. Among his fundamental contributions are origin of the red corpuscles of the blood, degeneration and regeneration of the nerve fibres, mechanism of sleep, relation of the inorganic salts of the blood to the heart beat, coagulation of blood, proteins of blood serum.

Convened in Sanders Theatre were the world's foremost physiologists. Most notable were Russia's Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, "dean of the profession," 1904 Nobel Prizewinner for research on the salivary glands; Denmark's August Krogh, 1920 Nobel Prizewinner for physiology of the capillaries; England's Archibald Vivian Hill, 1922 Nobel Prizewinner for research of muscular contraction; Belgium's Leon Fredericq, president of the second (1892) Congress. Present too were U. S. Surgeon-General Hugh S. Gumming and Harvard's President Abbott Lawrence Lowell.

Many a notable evening address there was, particularly Professor Krogh's. He complained that thousands of physiological investigations went on each year, that thousands were being reported, that thousands were useless, that no one was able or inclined to analyze and synthesize the work done. He urged international co-operation to abstract useful findings.

The speech of President Lowell, one-time professor of government, exalted a Boston Globe reporter, who wrote: "Pres. Lowell, when he rose to speak, was the recipient of as fine a spontaneously bestowed honor as he is ever likely to receive. Rising to speak before a group of men great in a field of which he has comparatively no knowledge, every one in the house rose with him. This is a custom at all Harvard gatherings, but the percentage of Harvard men in last night's audience was small, as by some magnet attracted, the audience rose to its feet.

"Nor could it be denied that the Harvard president was worthy of the honor. When he started speaking, every ear was attentive. Speaking extemporaneously, scorning alike the notes and the patent platitudes which had more than once preceded him, he talked on a level which was as lofty as the minds who paid him heed. These men who sat before him he praised as 'beacons scattered throughout the world, shining towards each other, reflecting each others lights, far above the disputes and petty wrangles of this world.*"

After the speechifying the physiologists walked across into the Harvard Yard (campus), where lights, music, refreshments and "admission by ticket only" resembled June Class Nights. Next day and each subsequent day of the week, busses carried the delegates across the Charles River to the Harvard Medical School, Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and the Boston High School of Commerce where the scientific sessions went on. Some points made:

Gastric Juice. Total loss of gastric juice causes death in five to eight days, unless Ringer's solution (sodium chloride, calcium chloride, potassium chloride, sodium bicarbonate and distilled water) is injected into the veins. Even so death is delayed at the most 76 days.--Chicago's Lester Reynold Dragstedt and James C. Ellis.

Cyclopropane Anesthetic, a new gas prepared by Philadelphia's G. H. W. Lucas and Toronto's Velyien Ewart Henderson acts similarly to nitrous oxide (laughing gas) but has more satisfactory after effects. Recovery is rapid. The patient does not struggle. Respiration remains normal, the blood pressure almost so.

Hen's Eyes contain in the retina red, yellow and almost colorless green globules, which may be important in the undetermined mechanism of color vision, stated London's Herbert Eldon Roaf.

Cod Liver Oil in small doses is more salutary than in massive doses, which may even be harmful. Pure cod liver oil is better than emulsions. Irradiating oil with ultraviolet light helps its effect.--Sweden's Erik Agduhr.

Yeast & Liver. Whole dried yeast helps the absorption of food. Water extract of liver stimulates appetite.--St. Louis' Wendell Horace Griffith.

Drugs & Mentality. No drugs tried by Stanford University's Walter Richard Miles improved the mental functioning of 30 rats. Ergo, probably no drug really helps man's mind.

Meat Diet. Arctic Explorers Vilhjalmur Stefansson and Karsten Anderson lived in the U. S. eating for a whole year nothing but beef muscle, tongue, liver, kidney, brain, fat, bone marrow, veal, lamb, pork, chicken, meat broths, black tea, water. They lived as ordinary city dwellers, except that they carefully walked an hour or so each day and occasionally ran about two and one-half miles. Their health remained excellent in all ways, leading New York's Eugene Floyd Du Bois, W. S. McClellan, H. J. Spencer and E. A. Falk, who studied them, to conclude that "in general white men, after they have become accustomed to the omission of other foods from their diet, may subsist on an exclusive meat diet in a temperate climate without damage to health or efficiency."

Deep Breathing & High Blood Pressure. Slow, deep breathing decreases the blood pressure of patients suffering from essential hypertension (high blood pres sure), Vienna's Wilhelm Raab reported, because thus they eliminate more than normal carbon dioxide from their blood. This does not apply to normal people or those suffering from nephritis with high blood pressure.

Synthetic Milk. China's Ernest Tso ground up fresh water-soaked soy beans and mixed the pulp with cane sugar, corn or rice starch, cod liver oil, calcium lactate, sodium chloride, cabbage water. This synthetic milk nourished Chinese infants as well as normal diet would have done.

Sleep is on a level with the body's vegetative reflex functions, according to Switzerland's Walter R. Hess. It is the consequence of a state of excitation of certain portions of the brain. Those portions lie along the same brain strata from which the liver, stomach, etc., are influenced.

Diabetes & Raw Starch. Washington's Sanford Morris Rosenthal has found that raw starches cause no permanent rise in the blood sugar of diabetes, whereas cooked starches created as much blood sugar as glucose would. Hence he urged diabetics to eat raw starches.

Digestive Acids. Too much acid in the digestive tract causes an anemia resembling pernicious anemia but not so difficult to treat.--Battle Creek's W. N. Boldyreff.

Sprinting & Horsepower. Sprinters expend 13 horsepower of chemical energy and 3 horsepower of mechanical energy. Rochester's Wallace Osgood Fenn found. They lose some energy because when their feet touch the ground they push themselves back slightly. Wind resistance absorbs some of their energy.

Physical Exercise & Health. One hour's exercise a day for a week increases the capacity of the lungs and their ability to transfer oxygen from the air to the lungs. The maximum result develops in five to six weeks of such exercise. If after such period physical exercise is neglected altogether, the gain in power lasts for several months.--Connecticut's Edward Christian Schneider and Gordon C. Ring.

Rages. Injuries to the base of the brain cause quick rages, found Oxford's J. F. Fulton and F. D. Ingraham.

Experimental Thanatology. A few physiologists are studying the causes of death and ways of retarding them. Most noted is Russia's Alexei Kuliabko. Noted too is France's Eusebio Adolfo Hernandez, who urged the Congress to organize an international organization for Experimental Thanatology.

Pavlov. Leningrad's Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was the most revered man at the Congress. Limping on his right foot he tried to avoid a crowd of learned admirers. They crowded about him and forced him to hold a sort of court. He liked the adoration. His early big work was on the salivary glands and on the nerves of the heart. His current work is on the functioning of the brain. Behaviorists have taken up his theories and made them fairly common knowledge. His picture of mental activity is mechanistic. The brain acts according to habits. Certain repeated stimuli condition it (and the physical and physiological activities which it 'controls) so that the reappearance of a stimulus causes the old response. Sight of a milk bottle makes the baby suck his lips. Sleep, he considers, is the result of inhibitions keeping stimuli from overworking the brain or causing it to do useless work. The human brain, he told the physiologists, is the most fruitful and most important study now confronting science.

Cancer. What Congress President William Henry Howell considered an epoch-making discovery was Russia's Boris Sokoloff's corferrol. It is a compound of the extract of the cortex of the suprarenal glands, with iron and pyrrol. Injected into cancerous tissues of hundreds of rats (experiments Dr. Sokoloff has been conducting at Columbia University's Institute of Cancer Research this year), corferrol has caused the malignant tumors to liquefy and disappear in a few days. Part of his theory is that cancers develop when the normal tissues cannot get proper amounts of oxygen from the blood. Corferrol supplies so much excess oxygen to the cancer cells that they stifle. So far his technique is insufficiently developed for trial on humans.

*As he spoke, Boston police were preparing to guard President Lowell on the anniversary of the execution of "Anarchists" Nicola Sacco & Bartolomeo Vanzetti which Dr. Lowell, as one of the three-man board of review, approved (TIME, Aug. 15, 1927)-