Capsules

P: The Tobacco Industry Research Committee, set up to study the medical effects of smoking (TIME, Jan. 11), named an advisory group of seven prominent scientists and medical investigators. Provisional chairman: Dr. Clarence Cook Little of Bar Harbor, Me.

P: Gnashing or grinding the teeth under nervous tension is "tooth doodling" to Columbia University's Dr. Lewis Fox, and, he reported, it does serious damage to both teeth and gums. His advice: learn to relax, with "lips together, teeth apart."

P: Acute nephritis (inflammation of the kidneys) has puzzled doctors because, like rheumatic fever, it follows "strep" infections, but irregularly and in no detectable pattern. A team of Cleveland researchers headed by Dr. Charles Rammelkamp Jr. has found the answer: only two (types 4 and 12) out of 46 kinds of streptococci cause nephritis. And thorough penicillin treatment of the strep throat will ward off the kidney disease.

P:The North Carolina Medical Society overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to take in Negro doctors. Argued Dr. Millard Hill of Raleigh: as members, they would "seek to capitalize on their privileges and try to mix socially with whites."

P: Doctors who gave up using ACTH for some common eye diseases quit too soon, two Michigan researchers told the Association of American Physicians. For inflammation of the optic nerve, and also for degenerative diseases of the choroid and retina, ACTH can be given for a year or two, may then restore 20-20 vision to patients who have been almost blind.

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