Capsules

> Traditionally the U.S. surgeon is a fellow of undramatic tonsorial tastes; his close-cropped hair and minimal dandruff can be readily confined under a surgeon's cap of modest proportions. Not so the younger surgeon of today, with wavy locks down to the nape and perhaps a mustache and beard as well. Infection following surgery remains a problem, says Ludmila Davis, director of Stanford University Hospital's operating rooms, and hair is a natural breeding ground for bacteria. So Mrs. Davis and colleagues have designed a "Lawrence of Arabia helmet" to cover not only the Samson hair but also the Burnside whiskers and Mosaic beards of young, mod surgeons.

> Of the several substances that may accumulate as "stones" in the gall bladder, cholesterol is the most common culprit. Because doctors have not known how to dissolve such stones, the usual remedy has been surgery--an estimated 350,000 operations annually in the U.S. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., now report in the New England Journal of Medicine that, in four cases out of seven, doses of a natural body chemical have succeeded in dissolving cholesterol gallstones. This type of stone, it appears, forms when bile (a digestive substance secreted in the liver and stored in the gall bladder) is abnormally rich in cholesterol and proportionately low in the concentration of a natural metabolite, chenodeoxycholic acid. Of seven women who received chenodeoxycholic acid as medication over a period of months, one experienced complete dissolution of gallstones, while three showed marked decreases in the size of their stones. The remaining three patients failed to respond. Testing on a large scale is necessary to show whether chemical treatment can become a general alternative to surgery.

> Gonorrhea now rates as America's most urgent public health problem, and officials have urged routine screening to detect the hundreds of thousands of new cases each year. But detection is often difficult, especially in women. Gonococci, the germs of gonorrhea, flourish and multiply astronomically in human genitalia, but are difficult to preserve for laboratory test cultures. The organisms are sensitive to air and often die by the time a specimen reaches a lab technician. Now Smith Kline and French Laboratories have devised a simple, self-contained test that physicians can perform in their own offices. The doctor takes a single smear from the patient's vaginal or anal area, places it in a tube enriched with a nutrient developed by the U.S. Center for Disease Control, and looks for a reaction in 24 to 48 hours. The new "Clinicult" test costs the doctor $2.30 and gives results as accurate as the older procedure.

> Doctors are forever cautioning parents to keep medicines out of the reach of children, who will gobble them like candy, and each new drug carries an additional hazard. The latest is methadone, sometimes prescribed as a cough medicine and painkiller, but best known as a substitute for heroin in antiaddiction therapy. In this week's Journal of the American Medical Association, three Detroit physicians report that they have seen 46 cases of methadone poisoning, one of them fatal. All but two of the victims were under seven. Some of the cases involved methadone obtained legally by prescription for adults; others involved illicit street sources. The fatal dose of methadone for children has not been precisely established, but even a small quantity may threaten a child's life by depressing the respiratory center.

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