T.B. Test

Early diagnosis is particularly important in the treatment of tuberculosis. Last week doctors were offered a new test which is painless, cheap and simple. "Plastotest" requires no hypodermic jab and no scratching to break the skin, needs no technical experts nor costly machinery. A preparation of tuberculin is applied with a toothpick to the surface of the skin, where it sticks like glue. If small blisters and redness appear within 24 hours, it indicates that the patient is or has been infected with tuberculosis.

To doctors and nurses, who in mass testing have to face hordes of squirming, reluctant children and needle-shy adults, Plastotest promises to be a real blessing, as well as a valuable means of screening patients for the more expensive X ray and longer-termed culture tests which give a final diagnosis of T.B.

Denver's Dr. Harry Corper, 65, who developed the test, is an oldtime foe and onetime victim of the white plague. An army major in World War I, he moved to Denver in 1919 and accepted the post of head researcher at the National Jewish Hospital (for poor T.B. patients). He has spent the last 30 years in his cluttered office and spotless laboratories trying to find ways to outmaneuver and defeat the tubercle bacillus. Still bright-eyed and vigorous but looking something like a fugitive from a Stanley Steamer, Dr. Corper wears a grey peaked cap and an oldfashioned, ankle-length canvas duster with note-stuffed pockets.

Like most medical researchers, Dr. Corper works long & hard for unsensational results. Basically optimistic about eventually licking T.B., he is wary of new "cures." But last week he was determined to stay in the fight until "I work myself out of a job."

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