Capsules

P: The Food & Drug Administration authorized the general use, on any doctor's prescription, of isoniazid (short name for the hydrazide of isonicotinic acid), the new anti-T.B. drug (TIME, March 3). So great has been the public demand for the drug that Macy's promptly advertised a supply of it in the New York Times.

P: Encouraged because a few types of cancer have responded in the last dozen years to treatment with drugs, Manhattan's Memorial Center opened a special 42-bed ward for the systematic testing of dozens of new chemicals and a few viruses on volunteer patients who cannot be helped by surgery or radiation.

P: It is always a tricky technical problem to hold a patient in position for deep, high-power X-ray treatments, e.g., those used in cancer. In the past, uncomfortable plaster casts, straps and sandbags have been used. Now, thanks to cooperation between cancer experts and a geologist, Manhattan's Francis Delafield Hospital has a better method. A rubber bag is half-filled with small plastic "pebbles" and molded around the part of the body to be immobilized. Then the air is withdrawn from the bag. The vacuum "freezes" the plastic pebbles into a solid mass which holds the patient like big, strong hands. After the treatment, air is let into the bag and the cast becomes flabby again. It can be used over & over.

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