Capsules

P: 1/8After checking 1,990 cases of cancer of the mouth, throat and lung, three National Cancer Institute researchers concluded that regular cigarette smokers are four times as likely to get lung cancer as nonsmokers and also more likely to get cancer of the larynx. Yet, they insisted, this is no scientific proof that smoking causes the cancer: if it did, increases in both types of cancer should parallel the increase in smoking, but cancer of the lung has increased with smoking while cancer of the larynx has not increased to the same degree.

P:Ehrlich's dream of a "magic bullet" to cure syphilis came a step nearer fulfillment. The Chicago health department treated 125 early cases with single whopping doses (2,500,000 units) of Bicillin, a variant of penicillin which stays in the body as long as a month. After a year, 94% had no sign of the disease.

P:For a hemophiliac, having a tooth pulled is dangerous and may be fatal. A rubber band is the answer worked out by the University of Illinois' Dr. Carroll La Fleur Birch: slipped around the base of the tooth, it works its way down and forces the tooth out. Extraction, rubber-band style, may take from five to 105 days.

P:Orthodontist Spencer R. Atkinson of Pasadena, Calif, saw a fresh danger in TV: children sitting around by the hour, or lying on their bellies, with their chins cupped in their hands, may push their jaws out of shape.

P:The usual hospital practice of putting newborn babies in an incubator if they have breathing difficulties is wrong, said an Atlanta husband & wife team, Drs. James and Faith Miller. The warmth of the incubator increases the need for oxygen, whereas cold decreases it. After experiments on animals, the Millers suspect that babies in danger of asphyxia should be chilled.

P:The U.S. now has 1,218,000 hospital beds (aside from federal institutions), reported the U.S. Public Health Service, but 161,000 are in buildings that should be scrapped. Still needed, despite a postwar spurt in hospital building under the Hill-Burton act: some 850,000 beds -- 336,000 in mental hospitals. 219,000 in general hospitals. 262,000 for chronic-illness cases, 31,000 for TB patients.

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