Chin Plate Stops Mouth Breathing

AN ADJUSTABLE chin plate has been developed by Oliver Lowry, Meridian, Miss., which, if worn at night while sleeping, eliminates mouth breathing, the principal cause of “whistling” and snoring. The device consists of a padded metal plate that fits the contour of the lower jaw. Adjustable elastic bands insure a satisfactory fit. Two small ribbons that run around the neck are needed when the device is worn by persons having short, stubby chins.

HEART DIAGNOSIS BY PHONE
YOUR heart may soon be diagnosed for ailments by telephone. A new five-lb. transistorized unit which transmits heart sounds and electrocardiograph signals via telephone has been developed by the University of Kansas Medical Center. The device is designed to solve many of the problems of phone consultations between heart specialists. The patient, with transmitter attached, sits or reclines next to a phone mouthpiece. At the receiving end, a second unit transmits the signal to another electrocardiograph machine for consultant’s reading.

HOSPITAL ON AIRSHIP MAY SWEEP PATIENTS ABOVE CLOUDS IN QUEST OF MORE SUNLIGHT

For persons suffering with tuberculosis, or just from nerves, will physicians soon prescribe a trip to the clouds in a flying clinic instead of a visit to the mountains?

Not long ago Charles L. Julliot, French lawyer, proposed that airplanes or dirigibles transport such patients above the clouds. His suggestion, which America hears was approved by the medical faculties of France, called attention to the fact that high altitude and sunshine produce well-known changes in the blood, in many cases beneficial. Add to this the natural exhilaration of an air trip, he says, and the effect might be even better than that of a mountain vacation (P.S.M., Mar. ’30, p. 34).

Dr. Karl Arnstein, vice president and chief engineer of the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation, and the man in charge of building the Navy’s great new airships at Akron, O., has described for Popular Science Monthly just how this hospital airship might be designed. The drawing of the “flying clinic” shown above was prepared from data supplied by Dr. Arnstein.

Like a huge blister, on top of the airship, would rise the aerial sanatorium, with suitable provision for the care and comfort of the patients. In that position it would receive the full benefits of sunlight. Its walls and roof would be studded with windows, the panes made of celluloid or some similar material which transmits the healthful rays of the sun. Glass would be ruled out because of the danger of breaking and the added weight.

In shape and probably in size the body of the airship would follow the de- sign of the two 6,500,000-cubic-foot airships being built for the Navy. A hospital airship of this size would be able to stay aloft for weeks at a time. An airplane carried inside its hull could maintain communication with the ground and if necessary make trips for special medicines and supplies.

The skipper of such an airship would maneuver his craft according to the weather. By cruising about to dodge storms, and soaring upward whenever clouds threatened to cut off its sunlight, a practically stable and unchanging weather condition could be maintained.

Comfortable Dentist Chair Minimizes Patient’s Fears

NO MATTER how comfortable patients are made to feel, they will always approach a dentist’s office with some trepidation. There is good reason for this, for once in a dentist’s chair, you have to take what comes and you can’t fight back.

Taking account of the patient’s deep-seated fear, dentists are now doing as much as possible to relieve the situation. Their latest efforts have resulted in the creation of a chair which has about every possible comfort for the victims.

This new chair, shown in the accompanying photo, has the last word in upholstery. The leather pillow on which the head rests, permits the patient to sit completely at ease, while, if it happens to be summer time, he is cooled by a breeze from an electric fan with which the machine is equipped.

In the accompanying photo, a demonstration is being given before a group of dentists for their approval.

Crutch for Paralyzed Eyelids

An eyelid crutch for use in cases of a paralysis of the eyelids, leading to a complete or partial loss of sight, has been developed by Dr. John C. Neill of the Pennsylvania State College of Optometry. The crutch consists of a thin gold half wire loop fitted to the contour of the patient’s eyes and welded to the nose piece of the glasses.

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UNMASKED: THE GREAT REDUCING PILL GYP!

Doctors warn that “the most widely promoted medical fraud of today” is a “menace to public health”

BY JAMES SHAWCROSS

STEVE ALLEN, video’s versatile funnyman, can be mighty witty on the screen and he can also be a dud at times. But the worst egg he ever laid wasn’t on TV. He did it, with an assist from his beauteous missus, in a so-called “paid endorsement,” lending his famous name to plug an infamous product, a spurious “reducing candy.”

According to a high-priced, nationwide ad that starred the famous couple, “Mr. and Mrs. Steve Allen lose weight together with AYDS!… Jayne: ‘And lose weight automatically!’ . . . Steve: ‘Triple check!’”

AYDS is one of those’ fast-selling reducing pills which hold out the promise of a panacea for fat people. They are represented as a wonder drug which makes you reduce without going on a diet!

Steve and Jayne seem to be just the right size around the crucial midriff — in fact, Steve himself is a bit on the lean side. So the chances are their motive in plugging AYDS must have been slightly ulterior. They probably did it for the cash such endorsements brings to celebrities.

There is nothing wrong with that. You don’t have to smoke Luckies to plug them, but in the case of those reducing pills, the harmless “fraud” has a serious side.

So here are a few questions for Steverino, the boy who made a name for himself by kidding silly commercials:

• Did you know when you endorsed AYDS that the product you plugged is pseudo-medical junk?

• Did you know that, according to various trade and drug sleuths of Uncle Sam, it doesn’t do what it promises — it doesn’t help you to lose weight, automatically or otherwise?

• Did you know that by endorsing such a spurious piece of patent medicine you loaned your good name to what a Congressional committee recently described as “the most wildly promoted medical fraud of today?”

DANGEROUS TO BE FAT Let’s give Steve the benefit of the doubt. But the same cannot be done for the product lie plugs. Steverino’s tasty quack-candy is but one of a large selection of “reducing pills” with which unscrupulous medical racketeers are now flooding the market. They are promoting these pills with misleading ads and endorsements, although they know very well that their pills will not stay those calories from adding extra pounds.

“AYDS” is one of the most publicized and least effective among these phony “wonder drugs.” Others go by all sorts of suggestive, quasi-medical names like ND-17 . . . R-D-X (put out by people who are so concerned about your tired blood) . . . Regimen . . . EHP . . . Hungrex . . . No-Di-Et . . . and EEDR. All of them are much-touted tools in a new craze that’s sweeping the country — the “dietless reducing scheme.”

Overweight is undoubtedly one of the nation’s prime problems. Too much poundage, resulting from an unbalanced diet, makes us sluggish and sick. Of the people who are 10 per cent or more overweight, 72 per cent have anemia, 37 per cent have nervous disorders, 18 per cent have diabetes, 22 per cent have heart trouble, and 7 per cent have gall bladder trouble. The medical profession now says that overweight people give up ten years of their lives just by being fat.

The slim silhouette in woman’s fashions, together with medical emphasis on the dangers of excessive weight, has created a vast market for these phony concoctions.

A slick clique of patent medicine makers saw in the medical warning a bonanza for themselves. They exploited the anxiety of overweight people and the dislike most of us have for dieting, and came out with these reducing pills which “guarantee” to make you lose weight — without the pain of dieting!

But people don’t reduce by swallowing those pills. On the contrary, a few wax quite fat — the shrewd manufacturers of the pills.

During a recent Congressional investigation into the racket, a Newark nutritionist named Dr. S. William Kalb, gave the solons a widely advertised pill to illustrate his point. Said Dr. Kalb, while the Congressmen munched: “Reducing pills so widely advertised today are a total waste of time and money.”

SWALLOWING SLOW POISON The doctor was asked what the tasty pill he handed out was made of. He said the brand was skimmed milk with a dash of lemon juice. He estimated its manufacturers made “about a 400,-000 per cent profit” on them.

Even if these particular pills happened to be harmless, others now flooding the market are not, he warned. “In some cases,” he said, “these pills represent a real menace to public health.”

Such a potentially harmful reducing pill goes by the brand name “EEDR.” It is manufactured by an obscure pharmaceutical firm, Otis Laboratories, operating out of Larchmont, New York.

This is the blurb with which “EEDR” is peddled: “Brand new — Now available for the first time! Flushes fat right out of your body! Reduce up to 6 pounds the first 2 days, up to 11 pounds the first week — or pay nothing! Just like a doctor’s prescription . . , You lose (up to) 50 pounds or more in a reasonable length of time without a single hungry moment . . . Send for EEDR now!”

You mail in three bucks for a 20-day supply and get 60 red pills and 18 brown pills by return mail. You are supposed to swallow three of each a day — a lot of “ammonium chloride” and “compounded ethylenediamine digydrochloride.”

What the blurb fails to say is the fact that these chemicals can do a lot of harm to the gullible pill swallower. The continued use of ephedrine, for instance, may cause restlessness and sleeplessness. Individuals with high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and thyroid disease run a real risk by swallowing those pills — aside from the fact that they won’t be losing the poundage the Otis people promise.

These cunning makers of the reducing pills gloss over the crux of the problem which is that no amount of pill swallowing will ever make a fat person lose weight. Dr. Kalb said he had tried many of the drugs on fat people but had never found one that was satisfactory as a weight reducer. He advised overweight people to face up to the fact that the only way to lose weight is to take in fewer calories than they burn up. He earnestly counseled against using any of the currently popular “medications” such as wafers, gum, candy (like AYDS), or even mechanical gadgets to lose weight.

While the vast majority of the good doctors is up in arms against the reducing pills, a small group of medics have placed themselves behind them and lend them dignity by enthusiastically endorsing them.

“TESTS” NEVER EXISTED This is a far more serious matter than the presumably innocent effort of Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows to make you chew AYDS.

The “EEDR” which contains that controversial ephedrine, is sponsored by one Dr. Frederic Damrau, a bona fide M.D. with a chichi Park Avenue address. He is the scientific brain behind the pill that was “invented” by another medic, one Dr. Edgar A. Ferguson of New York.

Probably encouraged by Dr. Damrau’s expertise, the Otis people advertise their red and brown pills with all the plugs pulled out. They say, in so many words, “it cannot harm your heart, lungs, liver or other vital organs.”

But on what is such a sweeping statement based?

On Dr. Ferguson’s say-so and on Dr. Damrau’s confirmation of a nebulous claim. The doctor even insisted that certain “clinical investigations” have borne out the claim — but a closer look-see on the part of this reporter revealed the startling fact that no such clinical investigations were ever actually made. When Dr. Ferguson was asked what clinical proof he had that EEDR was both effective and harmless, he answered congenially: “It rests only upon our own work. All our proof is our statement.” EEDR was further endorsed by a certain Dr. Theodore M. Feinblatt; but on cross-examination old Dr. Feinblatt conceded that he never really participated in any pertinent experiments, not at least in any he could recall.

And what is the professional record of Dr. Damrau who put himself squarely behind the controversial EEDR?

DAMRAU IS HOCUS-POCUS MEDIC He is a medical doctor, to be sure, but his practice of medicine has some strange undertones. He regularly advertises himself in “Drug Trade News” as a “medical writer” and a “medical consultant.” It is part of his business to write articles on various patent medicines and see that they get placed in reputable journals. He also sells medicine promoters the right to distribute certain drugs in return for royalty fees.

His strange “medical practice” has occasionally landed him in hot water with the authorities. A few of the firms who retained him as a consultant have run afoul of the law. Moreover, the American Medical Association at times in the past has directed pointed cricticism at Dr. Damrau.

Back in the 1930s, for instance, the Journal of the AMA devoted nearly two and a half pages to an editorial castigating an article this same Dr. Damrau had written for “Good Housekeeping.” It was entitled, ‘Undulant Fever: What It Is and How It Concerns You.”

The AMA said the article contained “pernicious misinformation.” According to insiders, Dr. Damrau wrote the article, not in the interest of people suffering from undulant fever, but in the interest of people selling raw milk.

Damrau was also medical consultant to a firm called Zo-Ak Company. This was the firm enjoined by the Federal Trade Commission to stop advertising its product as a “competent remedy or treatment for sexual debility.”

More recently, Damrau plugged a mineral-bath product called “Lymphex” which he described as a panacea for arthritic patients. He claimed he had actually tested it and found that it brought relief to 96 per cent of the cases tested.

But in 1954, the product Dr. Damrau has praised and endorsed with all the implied authority of the hard-won M.D. behind his name was found to be wanting, to say the least, by a Federal court. The company which manufactured “Lymphex” was fined $500 because its label falsely indicated that the drug was was an effective treatment for arthritis, rheumatic fever and various other ailments. This was the very drug Damrau found so miraculously effective by the special hocus-pocus of his “tests!”

What Damrau and his colleagues used to do for other controversial drugs, they are now doing for the reducing pills! Medics like Damrau — and, for that matter, Feinblat and Ferguson — are important in the case because their authoritative endorsement of the product lends respectability to the reducing pills, promoting their public acceptance even in the face of warnings by the Federal authorities and the nutritional experts of the AMA.

Damrau’s stand behind EDDR made it a best seller in its class. The endorse ment of other such pills by other doctors made the worthless reducing remedies do a landoffice business over drugstore counters.

Though such activities on the part of certain medics may not be compatible with the strict ethical standards of the American Medical Association, they could be glossed over as “business-before-ethics” if they did not actually condone a fraud.

But fortified by the endorsements of a handful of rather tolerant medics (whose tolerance is determined by the size of the fees they are getting as “medical consultants” to pharmaceutical firms like Otis of Larchmont), the manufacturers of reducing pills con- tinue to shout their brazen claims.

A product called “Regimen Tablets” thus claims: “No-diet reducing with new wonder drug for fat people . . . No diet, no special eating,” promising up to 10 pounds off the first week.

Another labeled “E.H.P. Reducer” blares: “First no-diet wonder drug for reducing! . . . astonishing weight losses . . . without giving up a single one of the foods you like!”

The people who make “ND-17″ advertise: “Lose as many pounds as you like without diets of any kind, without exercise.”

Even the quasi-ethical Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the firm which makes the famous Serutan, Geratol and Somex, goes to excess with the claim: “Here’s how you can lose weight and eat plenty . . . Now with the R-D-X plan you fill your stomach . . . Suffer no hunger tantrums.”

DIET IS ONLY ANSWER To all these claims, Dr. Kalb and the vast majority of honest medical nutritionists say — bunk!

What these pills will actually do is one of two things. They will either “depress” the appetite or “appease” it with such tasty decoys as candy, wafers, chewing gum, on which you nibble.

But they won’t help you reduce — unless you eat less!

Most brazen among the ads is that of a product called Larson’s S.M.D. (the mysterious letters actually standing for “Swedish Milk Diet”). Its ads never mention the horrible word, “diet!” On the contrary, they say: “No calorie counting, no special meals, nothing too difficult for anyone in normal health to follow Take Larsons S.M.D only three days weekly.’ But once you fall for the bait and buy a package, literature you find in side it will have a sobering effect on you. What you actually bought was not a reducing remedy, but a reducing diet.

It goes to extremes, in tact! According to the instructions; three times a week you dring four glasses of milk with the S.M.D. in it — but will that reduce you by itself?

Don’t be a sucker!

Of course it won’t! What will do the trick is in the fine type of the instructions which says: “On these three days each week you skip your meals altogether!”

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Giant Molecules: the Machinery of Inheritance

How Genetics, Youthful Science of Inheritance, Has produced Billions of Dollars of Wealth . . . Big Things that Boil Down to the Minutest Controls.

By BARCLAY MOON NEWMAN

THE remarkable discoveries in the youthful science of inheritance, genetics, have been applied to animal and plant breeding throughout civilization—and with almost incredible success. As regards the United States alone, during the past 30 years, even a conservative estimate of the cash value of the practical application of genetic findings would have to run into billions of dollars. Far greater yields of grains, fruits, vegetables, and cotton; far higher quality both in domestic plants and domestic animals of every description and their products, including milk, meat, eggs, and wool; increased and sometimes perfect resistance to disease; entirely new commercial varieties; and the lessening of the chances of famine: all these are in this story of science.

Thus, seemingly pure research into the machinery of inheritance has made possible stupendous progress in agriculture. This machinery works by controlling the development of the billions of cells, the tiny bits of living material or protoplasm which make up our bodies. Not only do certain cells develop into eye tissues or brain tissue under the influence of heredity’s mechanism, but also each special group of cells submits to even more precise regulation: frequently so precise that you may inherit a startlingly exact copy of your father’s nose, or mouth, or of your mother’s brain, perhaps with its peculiar sort of “nervousness.”

WE did not derive all our practically countless cells directly from our parents. Each parent provides only one cell. These two unite to form the first stage of our existence, the one-celled embryo. This tiny cell, multiplying by continued cell division, finally produces the fully mature body.

We are made up of billions of cells, and so, of course, as we recall, they are microscopic. Yet, small as they are, only a tiny fraction of each protoplasmic bit is involved in inheritance. If we could focus a fine microscope upon the single cell provided by one parent, and if this microscope were very powerful, we would discover, down near the limit of visibility, objects shaped like worms and called chromosomes. These chromosomes are made up of much smaller objects, the genes. At this point even the keenest microscope fails us—and scientists are not quite certain whether they can observe individual genes or, at best, clusters of genes. Nevertheless, all the evidence goes to prove that these minutest genes are the controllers of inheritance. And they have turned out to be giant molecules, each with some specific role to play in the development of color of hair, hardness of teeth, or some other of the thousands of characteristics which we inherit.

The science of genetics took its rise as late as the beginning of this century. That is, the first real approach to the understanding of the mechanism of heredity followed the discovery that practically the sole significant material which parents transmit to their offspring is the substance chromatin, the material of which all the wormlike chromosomes are made. It was found that chromatin makes up the chief portion of the sperm cell, the sex cell from the male. And in the case of the egg cell, the sex cell from the female, there appears to be little else but chromatin and reserve food. Hence, was it not logical to assume that chromatin contained the whole machinery for regulation of the offspring’s development of its parents’ characteristics?

The opening up of an entirely novel field of research placed the basic meaning of chromatin beyond any question. The highest honors for leadership in this field belong to Dr. T. H. Morgan, of the California Institution of Technology, who received the 1933 Nobel award in Medicine for his outstanding labors. The lowly vinegar fly, Drosophila melanogaster (“black-stomached fruit-lover”), has been in a major way the organism experimented with—though biologists have not neglected to check their results by ferreting out the secrets of wasps, barley, corn, wheat, primroses, jimpson weed, and many other living things. In this new branch of science, not only the chromosomes have been exhaustively investigated, but even the ultra-microscopic units out of which these wormlike rods are constructed. Modern scientific probing has penetrated down from the microscopically visible rods of chromatin to their constituent particles, the genes, whose measurements are in terms of a few hundred-thousandths of an inch.

More than 25,000,000 vinegar gnats have been examined. Excellent reasons lie behind this magnitudinous study. A human generation appears about every 25 years; the fruit-loving gnat reproduces in 12 days. Moreover, these gnats are readily raised by the tens of thousands in milk bottles in the laboratory. They have only four pairs of chromosomes, and it is not difficult to distinguish between the individual rods. Best of all, the vinegar fly has many heritable characteristics which are easily recognized: form of body, color, shape of wings; color of eyes; number and types of bristles; susceptibility to disease; and length of life. Finally, Morgan was awarded a Nobel prize in Medicine—because the laws of inheritance which apply to the fruit fly apply also to man. Like the fruit fly’s body shape, human feeblemindedness, short-fingeredness, and color blindness show up, generation after generation, in response to the manner in which heredity’s machinery operates throughout the animal and plant kingdoms.

MORGAN went far beyond merely proving that a given chromosome bears the determinants (genes) for a given characteristic, such as eye-color. By delicate and difficult technique, he demonstrated that a given determinant is located in a given region of a chromosome. Astoundingly, he was ultimately able to construct accurate maps of the chromosomal positions of the various physical bases of definite features of the species; that is, maps of gene locations. Tens of thousands of breedings have attested the accuracy of his chromosome mapping. Genes once had existence in theory alone. Today their existence is an established fact.

Now we are certain that behind susceptibility or resistance to disease in wheat or potato; production of milk with a high content of butter fat; liability to hog cholera; record egg-laying—-behind these characteristics and many another valuable financially, lies the gene as the fundamental unit, out of which the machinery of inheritance is constructed.

Once bio-scientists became satisfied that the gene is a real, physical unit, they sought its structure, its properties, and its arrangement in the chromosomes. Their findings have been amazing, not merely to themselves, but to physicists and chemists as well.

Compounded of a million atoms yoked in a bafflingly intricate design, the gene is gigantic among molecules. Though of course as a molecule it is (probably) invisible even beneath the most powerful lenses, its dimensions are for a molecule actually tremendous: somewhere near a ten-thousandth of an inch in length, and some fraction of this measure in diameter.

The chemical classification of this super-molecule seems to be with the proteins, which are exceedingly complex compounds of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, often sulfur, phosphorus, and other elements, and which are assumed to be the truly essential molecules of life. Certainly, no live material without protein is known—or supposed to exist. Examples of proteins are hemoglobin, the pigment which gives red blood corpuscles their color; albumin, the main constituent of egg-white; and the milk protein, casein. The ultra-microscopic virus of mosaic disease of tobacco is another protein, recently obtained in bulk as glassy, needlelike crystals, each made up of countless molecules. These too are super-molecules—also with many an uncanny property of the gene.

The genes are strung end to end to form wisps, called chromonemas, and these fine threads are bound together to produce a chromosome. The machinery of inheritance therefore is no more and no less than a vast and stupendously intricate system of chemical systems—the basis of whose chemistry is the particle, the gene, a super-compound.

IN cell division, chromosomes are seen to reproduce themselves. The gene, the foundation of the chromosome’s architecture, must do likewise. Or, rather, genes, by their individual multiplication, construct new chromosomes. Here is an almost unbelievable, a wholly novel, ability of a molecule: to create its like out of the lesser molecules of a suitable surrounding medium. Only in the gigantic virus protein have we discovered such a remarkable property—almost incredible to the physical scientist, who is used to far simpler aggregations of atoms.

For an approach to this problem of self-creation, or autosynthesis, we must consider the enzyme, also believed to be a formidable protein, though not so accomplished a one as the gene. Digestive ferments, such as trypsin of pancreatic juice, stimulate and regulate the breaking up of complex compounds into simpler molecules, known as amino acids, which the body can then assimilate. This disintegration can be reversed, however: an enzyme under appropriate conditions works backward—builds up amino acids into proteins (or unites them into protein-like compounds). If a super-enzyme had the power to fashion not simply great molecules out of small ones, but moreover great molecules precisely like itself, would we not have autosynthesis, as in the gene? And so it is thought that a clearer idea of the workings of enzymes may give us a better grasp of the self-production of giant molecules, like the genes, the cogs in heredity’s mechanism.

In the first 25,000,000 fruit gnats studied, about 500 heritable changes in eye-color, length of life, susceptibility to germs, showed up. Such heritable modifications of the ancestral characteristics are mutations. For example, every so often a young gnat, offspring of red-eyed ancestors, is born with the mutation, white eyes. Man has made valuable use of natural mutants like the seedless orange and rust-resistant wheat.

How do the genes, linked by the thousands to make chromonemas, cooperate to change a microscopic, one-celled embryo into a billion-celled man —and even a man very closely resembling his parents? We must assume that the genes have the ability not only to reproduce themselves, but, still more like super-enzymes, to start, regulate, modify, and terminate the biochemical reactions which, all together, mean life— and growth of many diverse tissues and organs and organ systems into a body astonishingly similar to that of the preceding generation. Incomparable abilities!

We have to speculate that the gene, as a super-enzyme, causes a bafflingly complex chain of chemical processes in the protoplasm in which the chromosomes swim. And this chain must include the production of innumerable stimulators and regulators; that is, enzymes, every one with its kingdom of biochemistry to supervise and keep harmonious.

Far from halting his labors in despair at the vastness of such chemical systems, the embryologist has persisted in his attack upon these deepest mysteries of vital existence. Thus, recently, he has been able to exhibit the presence, in the developing animal, of substances called organizers, which promise to turn out to be super-enzymes, given substance and activity through the agency of the genes.

IN 1900, Dr. Hans Spemann, now of the University of Freiburg, Germany, began a laborious series of researches upon the embryology of amphibians, including newts and salamanders. He cut newt eggs and young embryos into pieces, and observed the development of these pieces with a view toward finding the stages at which special determiners of particular kinds of tissues appear—or might appear. He transplanted bits from an early embryo to certain definite sections of more fully developed embryos, to watch the effects of possible early-appearing or late-appearing super-enzymes, or organizers. In the course of these experiments, from one embryo he took tissue which would normally produce the spinal cord of the young animal, and transplanted this tissue into another embryo. A spinal cord came into being in the second animal where one would not ordinarily be formed. Hence, the transplanted cells must manufacture organizers which stimulate surrounding cells to change into a particular kind of structure: a spinal cord, in this case.

Spemann’s work established the fact that an organizer determines whether a group of cells becomes spinal cord or becomes skin, or some other sort of tissue; and that such activators bring about the growth of organs each in its own proper place and each with its own proper functions. His achievement won him a Nobel award in 1935.

The transformation of the single-celled offspring into smoothly functioning adult, with billions of cells, must involve many a super-molecule, the delight of the biologist and the confusion of the physical scientist.

Hunger Measured by Balloons

SWALLOWING small rubber balloons after fasting from 15 to 44 hours, and then causing intense pangs of hunger by taking an insulin injection, sound like making a martyr of oneself for science. Yet this is the program submitted to by a number of men in the laboratory of Prof. A. J. Carlson and Dr. P. Quigley, of the University of Chicago. The insubstantial meal of balloons was taken so that the movements of the digestive tract might be measured. The rubber bubbles were connected with the outside world by means of slender tubes, to which instruments were attached for the measurement of changes of pressure in the balloons caused by contractions of the stomach and intestine.

A few things I noticed:
1. obviously being gay is a disorder.
2. they didn’t say if the prisoners were actually given any choice about their operations.
3. what did they do to the kids?
4. This quote
“It points also to the more illuminating truth that if the grandparents, or even the parents, of these men had been given proper medical and surgical treatment for their own glandular abnormalities, their children and their grandchildren would not have offended society…”
sounds like Lamarckism. Though according to Wikipedia that theory seems to be making a comeback.
5. Apparently you can tell a criminal by their face. From the pictures in the article that seems to mean “Foreign Looking”.

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Crooks Cured by Surgeons Knife

Here for the first time is the amazing story of how criminals in San Quentin prison, California, are made honest by giving them healthy glands.

By H. H. DUNN

THE surgeon’s knife and the laboratory test tube have entered the campaign against crime. Experimental researches, carried on over a number of years and beginning to show results in control and reform institutions this summer, indicate that criminal tendencies may be eradicated, development of the criminal averted, and the established criminal restored to normal by medical and surgical treatment.

Most of the work which has resulted in this astounding discovery has been done in schools for “backward,” or “wayward, children in San Francisco, and among the inmates of San Quentin prison in California. Looking into the causes of criminal behavior, Dr. Ralph A. Reynolds, of San Francisco, has opened a door which apparently leads not only to the prevention of crime, but to the reformation of the adult criminal. Confirmation of the value of the method of treatment of criminal tendency by surgery and medicine awaits the test of time, but in the five years so far devoted to this work results have been achieved which indicate that the surgeon may take the place of the policeman, the physician that of the judge, and that civilization will prevent rather than punish crime.

In the course of these experiments, it was found that a very high percentage of the inmates of the prison were suffering from some abnormal condition of the endocrine or “internally secreting” glands, which empty directly into the blood stream. It was learned that perpetrators of crimes of violence showed disturbance of the thyroid, the twin gland in the front of the neck which regulates growth, while forgers and similar criminals against property were found to have abnormal conditions in the pituitary. This is a pear-shaped body about the size of a bean, lying at the base of the brain. Perverts and degenerates hid certain derangements of the sexual glands under apparently normal exteriors.

Working with Dr. L. L. Stanley, San Quentin prison physician, Doctor Reynolds found that beneficial results were obtained, both in physical condition and mental outlook, when the glandular derangements of these prisoners were corrected. Approximately sixty were so treated by operation and by administration of gland extracts. Not one failed to respond to the treatment.

THESE results with adults in the penitentiary led to two conclusions, the most important that have been made in the scientific study of crime: First, that the so-called “criminal instinct” may be removed from the minds of men, and women, by the study and treatment of the endocrine-gland systems, in childhood or later.

Second, that potential criminality may be eliminated by the treatment of these glands in youth, whenever and wherever children are found to be suffering from such abnormal conditions.

In other words, it now seems not only possible, but highly probable, that malsecretion (that is, a secretion which is too large or too small, or chemically unbalanced) of some gland is responsible for the greater part of the crime in the world.

“We are beginning to accept the fact that the criminal is not essentially ‘bad’,” said Dr. Reynolds, “but that he merely is a person who shows a departure from what society has established as the ‘normal.’ There is a growing belief among scientists that, in dealing with criminals, too much attention is paid to the mind and the emotions, and too little to the sources from, which the mind and the emotions arise, and by which they are controlled.

“On the reasonable assumption that these sources exist in the functions of the body itself, and more specifically in the chemical functions of the body, the next logical step is to find the mechanism which controls the body’s chemical activities.

“Evidence is that this mechanism exists in the endocrine glands—the glands of internal secretion, also known as the ‘ductless’ glands, because their cells secrete directly into little blood vessels in the glands, without the aid of ducts. In connection with this reasoning, it appears quite obvious than any unbalanced condition of the chemistry of the body will lead to various and varying forms of unbalance in the mental and emotional outlook, and in the conduct (i. e., behavior) of the person involved.

THE work at San Quentin, of which more later, leads logically to a study of the field from which all criminals are drawn—our children. It would be tremendously more advantageous to society to prevent the development of the criminal, than to reform him after he is developed. Aside from the saving to humanity, the economic value to civilization of the salvaging of young lives, and the conversion of young minds to useful occupations, cannot be estimated.

“My work has taken me into the medical direction if two institutions, involving about 200 children. In virtually every ‘backward’ or ‘wayward’ child, boy or girl, I have been able to see a physical departure from normal. In many that as yet are neither backward nor wayward, I see evidence of the future development of abnormal conditions in the gland system. There is the child of low, often moronic, mind, who can do good work with his hands, but not with his brain. He is mistrained, and, because his mind does not respond to the training given him, he is called a ‘dumb-bell’ or worse. He goes out into the world unprepared to earn what the world calls an ‘honest living.’ He is drawn into a ‘gang.’ He is involved in a hold-up, or a gang-fight. The law gets him, and he— with an antisocial inclination in his subnormal mind—becomes a criminal.

“Such a child should be discovered; his ancestry traced; his physical and mental history recorded; the cause of his mental condition found. He may not be—in fact, he often is not—an obvious ‘gland case,’ but in many, many instances he will be found possessed of an abnormal thyroid or pituitary gland, and back of him will lie a history of ancestors similarly affected.

“Now, many children who show visible endocrine disturbances have pleasant types of minds, never brilliant, often below normal; but usually best described as ‘fat and good-natured.’ Their obesity or extreme fatness can be reduced by the correction of their glandular disturbances, and with such reduction comes an increase in industry and ambition. The moronic mind cannot be improved, but it can be given a sound body, and it can be given the training for work with the hands which will enable its possessor to win and maintain an honest place in society.

“What we must learn about children is why one becomes a criminal and another does not. Then we must treat the subnormal child—by medicine or by surgery—to restore the chemical balance of the body. This done, we must prepare him, or her, to earn an adequate living, so that the economic incentive to crime—as well as the mental receptivity to criminal ideas— may be removed. By so doing, we shall prevent crime. Indeed, we are so preventing it, in the schools mentioned.

“It seems to me essential, as the first step in this program, that orphanages and other schools containing numbers of children whose heredity and early environment may have been unsatisfactory should segregate the problem-children for study and treatment. Certainly, children so cared for could not be harmed, while the opportunity for their improvement is tremendous.

“THERE can be no question that in the majority of instances, malsecretion of some one or more of the endocrine glands is responsible for the commission of crime. To return to the experimental work at San Quentin prison, we have traced certain criminal activities directly to certain glands.

“The treatment of these glands has resulted, in many instances, in marked mental and physical improvement of the criminal, and, moreover, in what bears every evidence of being the elimination of the tendency to commit crime.

“THE principle involved is the restoration of normal mentality through establishment of chemical stability in the body by the treatment of the gland, or glands, involved.

“Some time ago, with the cooperation of Doctor Stanley, I undertook to carry through to conclusion a series of studies and treatments of prisoners showing gland disorders. Among these were men with enlargement of the thyroid gland, the very fat, the very thin, the very tall, the very short, those having abnormal hair distribution and growth, and some with subnormal sex glands.

“The thyroid group was divided into three classes: “First, those having an excessive growth of the normal cells of the thyroid gland, resulting in a highly active, ‘nervous,’ and emotionally unstable mentality. This condition is known as ‘hyper plasia,’ or overgrowth.

“The second class consisted of those having tumorous or lumpy growths of foreign tissue within the thyroid gland. This growth secretes a poisonous substance into the blood stream, resulting in great excitability, emotional instability, increased bodily activity, and, frequently, periods of depression. This condition is known as ‘adenoma.’ ” In the third group were gathered those with ‘colloid goiter;’ that is, an abnormal growth of the thyroid gland, caused by a deposit of supposedly inert material in the gland tissue. As a rule, this condition does not present obvious external symptoms, but it does produce a tendency to obesity.

“When we referred to the records of the crimes committed by these men, we found that in approximately seventy percent of the cases those in classifications one and two had committed Crimes of violence; that is, murder, assault with intent to kill, manslaughter, or manslaughter from reckless driving.

“EVEN more important than this, we learned that many of these men had records of similar, though lesser, crimes running back to boyhood years. One man showed tendencies to this sort of crime at the age of eight. Had he been given the proper medical and surgical care when a child, his life could have been turned to usefulness, and society would have been saved the labor and expense of protecting itself from his criminal tendency.

Records of these three groups of prisoners in general showed that each suffers from an abnormal stimulation of some sort. It appears to be certain that this instability of their mental processes is due solely to maloperation of the thyroid gland.

“Five of these men, intractable and guilty of frequent attacks on other prisoners, were given treatment by operation. That is, the hyper-plastic or overdeveloped tissue and the adenomas (gland enlargement) were removed. All have shown marked improvement in behavior, their mental stability has increased, their tendency to impulsive action has been reduced, and it is strongly probable that they will leave the prison with minds more in accord with the processes of civilization, and more amenable to its limitations, than they ever have been.

“Another group of prisoners—not thyroid abnormals—was made up of men having a disorder of the pituitary gland, commonly diagnosed as being due to undersecretion of the anterior or forward lobe of this gland. It was learned from the records that more than eighty percent of these cases were ‘sent up’ for crimes of irresponsibility, such as forgery, embezzlement, bad-check passing, and petty theft.

“IT IS interesting to note that not one in this ‘pituitary group’ had committed any crime of violence.

“In daily life, these are the fat, good-natured men; irresponsible, usually living far beyond their means, always in need of money, and so abnormal in endocrinal condition that they follow the paths of least resistance. Yet they are extremely difficult to arouse to a fighting mood, and in their efforts to fulfill their desires, stop far short of violence of any kind.

“We found that, generally speaking, it was possible to modify in a marked degree the personalities of these men, giving them greater seriousness, making them more responsible, and fixing in their minds a stronger sense of their proper attitude toward their fellow men.

“We did this by administering what we found to be the proper combination of pituitary and other glandular extracts, which seem to act as catalyzers, or reagents in the distribution of the introduced pituitary substance.”

Doctor Reynolds and Doctor Stanley also worked with a third group of prisoners, known as the “dys-gonads” (those having badly developed sex glands), involving two divisions, the homosexuals and the undersexed. Most of these are furtive, secretive, unaggressive, harmless men, but here and there arises one who suddenly becomes vicious, without apparent reason. The majority of them are in prison for crimes of perversion, yet there are thousands of persons of similar type in society, hiding their perversions to such an extent that they never have fallen foul of the law.

Treatment of this type by glandular extract produced demonstrable, highly beneficial results, and there is little doubt in the mind of Doctor Reynolds that the pervert and degenerate types may be returned a long way toward normalcy by this artificial restoration of the balance of the sex glands.

Thus, the three departments of crime—acts of violence, attacks on property, and perversion—have been given tests of five years and proved to have their source in unbalanced mentality, produced by abnormalities in the glands of internal secretion. Yet both Doctor Reynolds and Doctor Stanley, pioneers and leaders in this study of glandular criminology, insist that the results obtained be regarded only as “experimental.”

“OF THE prisoners examined, numbering hundreds, eighty-five percent had a definite history of disorder of the endocrine glands in one or both parents,” continued Doctor Reynolds. “Similar abnormal conditions of these glands were found in grandparents, uncles, aunts, sisters, and brothers of these men.

“This points clearly to a powerful hereditary factor at work in disorders of the glands of internal secretion.

“It points also to the more illuminating truth that if the grandparents, or even the parents, of these men had been given proper medical and surgical treatment for their own glandular abnormalities, their children and their grandchildren would not have offended society, and would not now be in prison, burdens on that civilization whose rules they have broken because of the upsetting of their endocrinal gland balance.

“Beyond this somewhat scientific deduction, we are met squarely with the tremendous economic and sociological fact that if we remove the endocrine abnormalities from the children of today, we shall reduce greatly the crimes against the society of tomorrow. If we restore the balance of the thyroid gland in the throat of little Johnny Jones, thereby calming permanently his childish outbursts of temper, we are in a fair way to prevent a murder. If we train wee Billy Smith’s pituitary glands so that he refrains from stealing his neighbor’s apples, we have curbed the malsecretion of the gland which has put other and older men into prison for embezzlement and forgery.

“WE ARE becoming more and more certain that behind every ‘ backward’ and wayward’ child there is a physical reason. Something is wrong with the internal mechanism, the glandular chemistry, of that child’s body. If, through a study of the child’s endocrinal history, and a complete examination of its present condition, we can restore the balance of the gland influence on the child’s mentality, then we can remove what we call, for want of a better term, the ‘tendency to crime.’”

So much for the prevention of crime, for the averting, in youth, of a predisposition toward wrongdoing in later years. We have seen what Doctor Reynolds and Doctor Stanley have accomplished with the adult criminal in San Quentin prison. The logical path along which this work must go is the one of restoring to these men such mental balance that they will realize their responsibilities to themselves, to society, and to civilization. Doctor Reynolds believes that this can be done in many instances, but his demand is for time to observe the result of experimental surgical and medical work done on these prisoners.

Let Doctor Reynolds speak again: “We have with us another and larger group which has been only touched in this study of glandular balance and control. These are the persons who, we say casually, ‘have criminal faces’; scientifically, they are classified as having the stigmata of degeneration. Their facial abnormalities—from the sight of which the layman judges them to be at least potential criminals—are due to disturbances in growth and development. Endocrinologists, specialists in the study and treatment of endocrine glands, have come to look upon them as glandular subjects, inasmuch as virtually always their ancestry reveals a long and involved history of disarrangement of the glands of internal secretion.

“IN THE ancestry of such persons also appear insanity, epilepsy, feeble-mindedness, cataracts early in life, harelip, strabismus (commonly known as cross-eye’), and other defections from the normal, scientifically classified as ‘stigmata.’ Their histories often begin with a parent who, for example, had a pituitary abnormality, from which only other pituitary disarrangements will appear in the children for several generations. Then, quite suddenly, in one of these generations, the offspring will begin to show other defects in development, abnormalities of mind as well as of body.

“Often these ‘degenerations’ are not accompanied by any of the recognizable symptoms of gland disorders, and it is only from their histories that the true causes of their conditions, their physical, mental, and moral aberrations, may be obtained. For this reason medical science has been slow to accept the close relationship which undoubtedly exists between the ‘ man with the criminal face’ and glandular disarrangements.

“If the earlier stages of gland disorder are diagnosed and treated, much can be accomplished, but when the hereditary process has reached the point— several generations later— of pronounced stigmata of degeneration, segregation of these individuals seems to be the only method of eliminating their spread. Low fecundity and early death combine to wipe out this type, if so isolated that new blood cannot be brought in by marriage.

“ALL the types in our penal and corrective institutions, these seem to be the ones whose segregation and confinement is necessary until they die out, in spite of all that has been or can be done for them in the way of effort to restore their mental and physical stability by gland treatment.

“In the near future, large groups of prisoners at San Quentin and other penal institutions are to be classified as to the type of crime committed, and then studied as to the glandular disturbance which preponderates in each group. On the determination of the extent to which criminal tendencies can be reduced by restoration of the endocrine gland balance rests the greatest hope of modern society for the prevention of crime in future generations, and the reformation—or, better, the ‘remaking’— of the criminal in this generation.”

HOSPITAL ON AIRSHIP MAY SWEEP PATIENTS ABOVE CLOUDS IN QUEST OF MORE SUNLIGHT

For persons suffering with tuberculosis, or just from nerves, will physicians soon prescribe a trip to the clouds in a flying clinic instead of a visit to the mountains?

Not long ago Charles L. Julliot, French lawyer, proposed that airplanes or dirigibles transport such patients above the clouds. His suggestion, which America hears was approved by the medical faculties of France, called attention to the fact that high altitude and sunshine produce well-known changes in the blood, in many cases beneficial. Add to this the natural exhilaration of an air trip, he says, and the effect might be even better than that of a mountain vacation (P. S. M., Mar. ’30, p. 34).

Dr. Karl Arnstein, vice president and chief engineer of the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation, and the man in charge of building the Navy’s great new airships at Akron, O., has described for Popular Science Monthly just how this hospital airship might be designed. The drawing of the “flying clinic” shown above was prepared from data supplied by Dr. Arnstein.

Like a huge blister, on top of the airship, would rise the aerial sanatorium, with suitable provision for the care and comfort of the patients. In that position it would receive the full benefits of sunlight. Its walls and roof would be studded with windows, the panes made of celluloid or some similar material which transmits the healthful rays of the sun. Glass would be ruled out because of the danger of breaking and the added weight.

In shape and probably in size the body of the airship would follow the de- sign of the two 6,500,000-cubic-foot airships being built for the Navy. A hospital airship of this size would be able to stay aloft for weeks at a time. An airplane carried inside its hull could maintain communication with the ground and if necessary make trips for special medicines and supplies.

The skipper of such an airship would maneuver his craft according to the weather. By cruising about to dodge storms, and soaring upward whenever clouds threatened to cut off its sunlight, a practically stable and unchanging weather condition could be maintained.

Operating Room Goes to Battle in Tank-Towed Armored Trailer

TOWED into battle by a war tank, an armored operating room for front-line casualties has been designed by C. J. Birtcher, a Los Angeles, Calif., manufacturer of surgical instruments. Emplacements cut in a hillside by bulldozers would hide such trailers from enemy view. Each one measures 35 feet long, is gasproof, contains complete surgical equipment, and has steel walls capable of withstanding machine-gun bullets and shell fragments. Within, a two-man surgical team could handle as many as 30 cases an hour, safe against anything but a direct hit by bomb or shell. Similarly armored vehicles, of 16-man capacity, would bring in the casualties. As each arrives, he is placed on an “incoming” bed, anesthetized, and transferred to a hydraulic operating table. Following surgery, he is transferred to an “outgoing” bed to await transportation to a hospital in the rear by armored ambulances.

Yale Scientists Trace Cancer To Body Electricity

Electrical changes in the human body may explain the cause of cancer according to Prof. H. S. Burr, of the Yale School of Medicine. Working with Dr. R. G. Meader, Prof. Burr has found that minute changes in the living process are accompanied by changes in body electricity. Using a highly sensitive vacuum tube microvoltmeter the electrical current in the bodies of both humans and animals can be measured without the use of an external current supply.

With constant checks on the current output of the body organs the scientists believe that they can not only solve the cause of cancer, but find the clue to the way in which heredity cells function resulting in inborn diseases. Animals which have been injected with disease germs substantiate their claims.

Electric “Bombardment” Treatment Cures Black Eye

A DISFIGURING, and sometimes embarrassing black eye can be removed in less than one hour by the use of a new static machine that “bombards” the eye with electricity. The electric treatment is painless.

The static device, as explained by Dr. Norman Titus, New York City physiotherapist, consists of a simple negative and positive electrode. The patient holds the negative electrode while the attending physician “aims” the positive electrode at the discolored optic.

The electric “bombardment” by the static machine breaks up the coagulated blood. This allows the capillary system to resume a free flow and carry away the discoloration.

Languages Now Taught by X-Ray

Remarkable Action Photos of Vocal Organs Disclose Secrets of Speech That Long Have Baffled Anatomists

By GEORGE H. DACY

A GOLD chain many times thinner than a watch chain, a set of X-ray photographs, and a few ingenious devices have just solved secrets of human speech that have baffled anatomists for centuries. The photographs on this page are of human subjects talking a foreign language. The chain which appears as a white line in the center picture is one swallowed by the subject during the tests. The pictures were made under the direction of Professor C. E. Parmenter, of the University of Chicago, an authority on romance languages. They reveal for the first time just how the voice organs form consonants and vowels. Incidentally, these new tests show that the average American never masters a foreign language simply because he is too lazy to open wide his soft palate, the drooping muscular fold at the rear upper end of the mouth.

Although the results of Professor Parmenter’s experiments interest all voice experts, they were undertaken in the hope of finding a new and more effectual way to teach students foreign tongues. He had found, for instance, that no American could learn French perfectly simply by the customary practice of imitating native Frenchmen. Therefore he sought to learn the actual position of the voice organs so that he could teach students the correct lingual “stance” for any consonant or vowel.

Little was known about the operation of the vocal organs. No one had actually seen them in action. So Professor Parmenter made a number of X-ray pictures —the only collection of its kind in existence. Subjects were asked to pose with the head in a rigid, though comfortable, frame, and while they pronounced an “a” or an “f” X-ray pictures were taken.

Diagrams traced from the life-size pictures showed the correct position of speech organs, both for English and foreign words. A tiny, flexible gold chain which the subject swallowed helped reveal the position of each organ, including the soft palate.

Besides the X-ray machine, Professor Parmenter has adapted several other scientific devices to help him in his work. One of the first he used records the rise and fall of the human diaphragm in speaking. At the detecting end of this device, called a “pneumograph,” two belts fasten snugly about the chest and abdomen of the speaker. A mechanized bookkeeper, consisting of a revolving cylinder recording the movement of the diaphragm by a needle point on a smoked sheet, is connected to the belt by tubes (P.S.M., May ’28, p. 49).

Breath, the basis of all speech, is measured by a novel piece of apparatus called a “kymograph.” It consists of a mouthpiece, like a megaphone, into which the subjects talks. Rubber tubes connect it with a paper bellows hood, which expands or contracts with the amount of breath expended. The hood, in turn, is linked to a smoked plate recorder which accurately registers the phonetic results of each test.

In other studies a radio microphone, a set of special mirrors, _and a standard motion picture camera are adapted to photograph the vibrations which constitute speech. Fluctuations of current generated by the voice in the “mike” vibrate the mirrors, on which the camera is focused. The films are enlarged and analyzed under microscopes to determine voice defects and their remedy.

IN ADDITION to studying these pictures and comparative drawings, language students “listen in” on phonograph records made by expert linguists in foreign tongues—and then attempt to repeat the words correctly into a dictaphone. Comparing the two records, a student recognizes and corrects his own mistakes.

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Who Are the Quacks?

By Annie Riley Hale

YOU see the Allopaths arrived first, with Hippocrates, and quickly seized all the natural strongholds,—popular ignorance and superstition, the laissez-faire instinct of the mob to be led or driven, and the panicky animal fear of pain and death. These they further fortified with traditions of medical learning and omniscience; with the alleged inability of the lay mind to grasp any ordinary physiological fact; and the pleasing fiction that every physician is a man of science, holding the only key to health.

And most potent of all the adventitious aids making for Allopathic exclusiveness and supremacy, is the veil of secrecy and mystery which has ever hung over their activities, and which the elaborate foreign and technical nomenclature of the medical schools rendered well-nigh impenetrable to the laity.

The element of mystery in medical practice, which has been such a source of profit to its votaries, was early and easily injected because of the notion among primitive peoples that disease was a manifestation of some occult power for evil; hence the first practitioners of the healing art were also the religious teachers — sorcerers, soothsayers, and the priests of the various altars, who sought by mystic signs (the forerunners of modern pharmaceutical cipher) and incantations, sometimes by the torture of the afflicted ones, to drive out the indwelling demons of bodily distempers.

A favorite method of expulsion was by administering concoctions from poisonous herbs, and in order that the dose might not kill the patient as well as his tormenting evil spirit, it became necessary for these early practitioners to study the nature and properties of herbs and minerals, to calculate their effects on the human system, and learn how much could be taken with impunity.

This was the origin of the “medicine men” and the elaborate drug baiting which subsequently held malign sway over sick humanity through many centuries, but which happily now shows a tendency to peter out in the sale of soap, perfumery, and tooth-brushes.

The art of healing in some form is as old as the race, and strictly speaking there is no “Father of Medicine,” although Hippocrates won the title by creating for it a literature, and by founding a school of medicine which bore the designation “Dogmatic,” as teaching and practicing in accordance with a general principle and not empirically. He thus placed his art upon so firm a basis that later teachers have generally preferred to imitate or modify what he set forth, rather than venture upon new fields of inquiry. The maxim has been imputed to Hippocrates: “Sacred knowledge may be communicated only to the initiated ; the profane may not be taught before their initiation,” and the vow of secrecy imposed upon the novitiate in his school was styled the “Hippocratic Oath.” doubt this was an inheritance from an earlier practice when it was accounted sacrilege for any to intrude upon a priestly function; he was certain to meet the fate of Korah and King Uzziah.

Pliny relates that Galen, in the Second Century, narrowly escaped mob violence at Rome, for delivering a series of public lectures on anatomy at the request of the leading men of the city, noblemen, savants, and philosophers, among them the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, but for whose protecting favor, the famous physician would probably have been arraigned and put to death. For he was charged with “a violation of the code in force among Roman physicians, as well as of the so-called Hippocratic Oath, which forbade the instructing of nonmedical persons in any of the mysteries of professional knowledge.” The historian declares this to have been merely “the desired pretext” for venting upon Galen the jealousy and enmity of the Roman guild of physicians, who hated him because “he was infinitely their superior in skill, erudition, and liberality of sentiment.” Very significant of the power of this Roman medical guild over the minds of the Roman populace, however, was the fact that despite the powerful friendship of the Emperor, Galen was compelled to desist from lecturing, and was denounced by all the ribald epithets—”quack ” among others—current among the medical nien of that period, until in disgust he left Rome and returned to his native Pergamos. Later he was summoned by Antoninus to accompany him on a military expedition, and afterward became the physician of the Imperial family.

Thus it appears that medical bigotry and intolerance, professional jealousy and hate, have gone hand in hand with the development of the Healing Art from time immemorial; and knifing therapeutic colleagues has ever been a favorite pastime with the gentlemen who neglect no opportunity to laud the “nobility” of their calling. As time went on, the Allopaths, like all monopolists, waxed rich, and in common with other rich folks, were very influential with governments. With political power added to their superstitious control over the minds of the masses, they were able to build up a system which up to the present has been practically impregnable. It had in it the absolutism of kings, the slavocracy of medieval priest-craft, and the plunderous graft of modern commercialism. Entrenched behind this triple-barred fortress, members of the Allopathic school were in position to Mag their heads derisively at the exponents of other therapeutic systems. They christened themselves the “regulars,” and all others were faddists, cultists, and “quacks”; the last named being the favorite epithet for all dissenters from Allopathic faith and practice, and lias been applied indiscriminately and with equal ictus to the scholarly founders of the Homeopathic and Naturopathic schools of thought, and the illiterate vendors of hair tonics and corn plasters.

One might suppose that the Allopaths in the full security of their superior position, would be content with verbal jibes and revilings at the quacks, and that they could even afford to be good-natured about it; but the history of quack persecutions at the hands of Allopathic authorities for the past hundred years, seems to imply that for all their boasted superiority and strength, the “regulars” stand in constant dread of dispossession by the despised “quacks.” Witness their frenzied efforts at suppression of the latter, not alone by public fulmination and ridicule from platform and official medical journals, but by compulsory laws, and so long as public opinion would tolerate such instruments, by thumb-screw and fagot, which bigotry has always carried for non-conformists. In Wilder’s “History of Medicine,” page 272, we read: “In Germany, as in America, there arose in the earlier years of the nineteenth century a movement among the less scholarly but more numerous grade of physicians to suppress rival modes of practice by arbitrary measures.”

The first to feel the fires of persecution in this movement, were the exponents of Homeopathy and Natural Therapeutics, the demonstrated efficacy of whose methods had won them many adherents in the latter part of the eighteenth, and early part of the nineteenth centuries. Hahnemann, the founder of the Homeopathic school, was forbidden to prepare or dispense his own medicines, was finally driven from Leipzig and took up his abode in Paris in 1835. His disciples continued to be fined and imprisoned in Germany and other European countries, and when they crossed the Atlantic— which they did in 1825—they met the same chilling hostility in America. Their efforts to found Homeopathic schools and colleges to spread the new doctrine were blocked by flocks of Allopathic birds which they found perched in every State capitol, ready with sharpened bills to peck to death every therapeutic innovation; the same flock which later met the Osteopathic applicants for legislative license, and which are not pecking so furiously at the petitioning Chiropractors. Even so dignified and important a personage as the head of the New York Neurological Institute, told the writer he had taken the time from his busy life to go up to Albany a few years ago, in company with other eminent “regulars,” to help defeat a bill before the New York Assembly for Chiropractic State licensure. “And if you could have seen the bunch of illiterate ignoramuses who were there to push that bill!” exclaimed the head neurologist, as an expression of unspeakable disgust spread over his broad face.

It did not seem to occur to this eminent neurologist that he and other opponents of Chiropractic licensing, were chiefly responsible for the illiteracy and ignorance of individual Chiropractors, which unquestionably exist, and may work harm in some instances—t hough whether more than frequently is wrought by Allopathic blundering, is questionable. Certainly, the most illiterate Chiropractor could not display more ignorance of practical dietetics in the treatment of disease, than was displayed by this same head neurologist in a memorable case of which the writer had personal knowledge. Be that as it may, it is obvious, that but for the powerful opposition of the Allopathic school, Chiropractors would long since have received the same authority from the State to practice their method that is accorded the exponents of other therapies, and with the license some safeguarding provision requiring a certain amount of academic and medical training. Thus would be insured to the Chiropractic physician as good a knowledge of English and miscellaneous subjects as is owned by the average Allopath, and at least a workable knowledge of anatomy, physiology, and hygiene, which undoubtedly every one who essays to treat the human body should possess.

—————————

Are the Allopaths “Stealing the Thunder” of Homeopaths and Naturopaths?

DR. WILLIAM OSLER, world’s greatest authority

on drugs, says in his article “Modern Medicine,” in the Encyclopedia Americanna:

“The new school does not feel under obligation to give any medicines whatever, while a generation ago not only could few physicians have held their practice unless they did, but few would have thought it safe or scientific. Of course there are still many cases where the patient or the patient’s friends must be humored by administering medicine or alleged medicine where it is not really needed, except where the buoyancy of mind, the real curative agent, can only be created by making him wait hopefully for the expected action of the medicine; and some physicians still cannot unlearn their old training. But the change is great. The modern treatment of disease relies very greatly on the old so-called ‘natural’ methods, diet and exercise, bathing and massage,—in other words giving the natural forces the fullest scope by easy and thorough nutrition, increased flow of blood, and removal of obstructions to the excretory systems, or the circulation in the tissues. Take for example typhoid fever … It was perfectly certain that Homeopaths lost no more of their patients than others. There was but one conclusion to draw—that most drugs had no effect whatever on the diseases for which they were administered.”

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Your Sex Questions Answered

The purpose of the QUESTION AND ANSWER DEPARTMENT is strictly educational. All answers are made by a medical authority and are based on recorded experiences of similar cases.

When writing, please observe the following rules. Letters must be signed with your name and address. All names and addresses are Kept strictly confidential. Use TYPEWRITER or ink. Please be brief and write legibly. USE A SEPARATE SHEET FOR EACH QUESTION.

Because of the time required for publication, several months must elapse before an answer can appear here. SEXOLOGY cannot prescribe medical remedies, nor can we forward your mail to other correspondents.

No sexological information can be given to minors, unless married. If not married, state that you are over 21.

NOTE: For a prompt personal answer by mail, a charge of 50 CENTS PER QUESTION is made to cover stenographic and typewriting charges, handling expenses, etc. Please include a stamped and self-addressed envelope. Address all letters for this department to:
David O. Cauldwell, M.D.,Sc. D.
Editor, Question and Answer Dept.
SEXOLOGY, 154 West 14th St., New York City 11

Sexological Symbols:
(M) – Male
(F) – Female

• Plastic Organs (5049)
Sir: I am 36 years of age and my husband and I want children desperately. However, he doesn’t want to adopt any. We both know of several cases that didn’t turn out quite as they were expected to, and while I am willing to ignore this and adopt a child I still can’t convince my husband that this is right.

I can’t have any children because I had an operation when I was 29 years old and everything was removed except my womb. The doctors said it was a healthy organ and since I was still comparatively young, he would leave it in.

I have heard that doctors are replacing missing organs with plastic or some synthetic materials, and that they do function as before. If this is true please advise me as to where I can secure the vital information concerning such an operation.
Mrs. D. M., Missouri
(F)

Not many organs of the body can function if any form of plastic is inserted in their stead. A plastic tube cannot replace a whole organ.

Plastic ovaries would be completely useless, since they could produce no cells. Without egg cells to meet spermatozoa, there can be no procreation.

If both you and your husband strongly desire children your only recourse is through adoption.

Adoption agencies are very careful in checking on the physical and mental health of the children in their care. It is true that some adopted children do not turn out the way their parents hope, but isn’t this equally true of children that are not adopted?
—Editor

• Enlarged Vagina (5050)
Sir: I am a woman of 29 and have five children. I love my husband and wish to keep him happy.

Perhaps due to child bearing in six straight years or maybe other sources my vagina is now too large. My husband says he doesn’t get the satisfaction from marital relations that he used to get.

I would like to know if there is any kind of operation or maybe certain douches or medication or exercises that would help. It is really a serious problem with us.
Mrs. E. R., California
(F)

The best advice that we can give you is that you consult a surgical gynecologist, a good general surgeon or a plastic surgeon. If an operation which is known as perineoplasty is indicated, either such specialist can perform the operation and give you relief. Douches have very little value even on a temporary basis.

Exercises have sometimes been helpful when the muscles of the vagina are too relaxed. In such cases a device known as the perineometer, developed by Dr. Arnold H. Kegel, has been helpful. You may secure information about this from your own physician, or by writing to Dr. Kegel in care of this magazine.
—Editor

• Supernumerary Nipples (5051)
Sir: My fiancee has two nipples, one right above the other on each of her breasts. Also there is a slight growth of hair in the region of the nipples.

Can this condition be corrected by surgery, and if so will it lessen the sensitivity of the remaining one? Will an operation have to wait until after she has given birth to a child so as to ascertain through which nipple milk will come?
Mr. H.W., New York
(M)

Your description is that of “supernumerary nipples.” These may occur anywhere on the body. The only treatment is surgical. Should your fiancee decide on an operation, it would not be necessary to wait until after the birth of a child.

A surgeon would know, upon examination, which nipple he should remove. The sensitivity of the remaining nipple should not be affected.
—Editor

•Self-Gratification (5052)
Sir: I am a seaman who spends a good part of the year at sea. A young friend of mine has asked me a question which I could not answer, but which I believe you can. We are quite friendly toward each other, and he tells me a lot about his past life. He will be eighteen in a couple of months.

His question: In the last few years he has engaged in self – gratification very much (I don’t know how often he meant). He is wondering whether this will have any effect upon his sex life in the future. He is wondering also how this would affect his married life.
Mr. L. J., Alaska
(M)

Your friend should not be concerned merely because he has indulged in self-gratification, and the practice by itself should not have any effect upon his future sex life or a future marriage. Doctors consider self-relief from sexual tension as a natural and not unhealthy practice both physically and mentally.

Of course there are some individuals to whom the practice becomes an obsession and serves as a substitute for sexual relations. Even in such cases it is not the practice which is harmful but the original emotional problem which is causing the person to substitute self-gratification for marital relations.

There is no indication in your letter that this is true in your friend’s case.
—Editor

• Sexual Itching (5053)
Sir: I am a woman 47 years old and married. I have a chronic itch above the clitoris. Can you recommend any good ointment for this condition. I have tried everything but the ointments I have tried seem to be too bland.
Mrs. B. J., Penna.
(F)

There are many causes of itching, or pruritus. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, the itching is sometimes psychologically caused, being due to sexual maladjustment. Scratching in such cases often serves as the equivalent of self-gratification.

There is also a menopausal pruritus, which sometimes responds to hormone treatment. Itching may also be a result of dryness of the skin or diabetes, etc.

Treatment in each case depends on the specific cause. Therefore it is important to see a doctor who can examine you personally.
—Editor

• Impotence Appliance (5054)
Sir: Where may I obtain a successful appliance or device to compensate for complete male impotence?

Mr. T. B., Ohio
(M)

Such devices have not been approved by the medical profession even though many of them are on the market. Sometimes these devices have been found to be dangerous. No penile support made in this country can be recommended.

In England, a device known as the Coitus Training Apparatus has been developed which some physicians and psychiatrists used in connection with their treatment of male impotence. The device which is dispensed only by physicians is very difficult to obtain in this country.

The use of a penile support is a very controversial subject among sexologists. Most feel that reliance on such a device will prevent the individual from overcoming his impotence or getting rid of the basic causes. Some feel that a well made and properly-fitted support can be used effectively in the treatment of psychologically caused impotence.
—Editor

• Spanish Fly (5055) Sir: What is the effect of Spanish Fly on a woman before, during and after intercourse? How long after it has been taken does it take to react? Is its use harmful either for male or female?

Mrs. F. G., Virginia
(F)

Cantharis, commonly called Spanish Fly, is not an aphrodisiac. It is a potent poison. It was formerly used in extremely small doses as a diuretic (that which increases the secretion of urine). There is positively no excuse for its use in medicine today.

It inflames the genito-urinary tracts and usually causes violent reactions in the individual taking the drug. The drug is very dangerous and the most competent medical treatment is required when a person is poisoned with cantharides, since it may cause death.

Many deaths have been observed after ingestion of cantharides. If it is applied to the male organ it may cause blistering and swelling of the penis.
—Editor

• Urethral Stricture (5056)
Sir: I recently had a prostate operation, hoping that afterward I would have no urinary difficulty. However, I find that periodically I experience great pain and difficulty in urination. I am told that this is because of a “stricture” which has developed. Can you explain why this has happened. I am deeply distressed at having some of the same symptoms I had before the operation.

Mr. J. P., Illinois
(M)

A stricture of the urethra may occur at any point in the urethral canal. It indicates a narrowing or closure of the urethra at some point or a weakening of its power to distend.

Common causes of stricture are inflammation, resulting often from gonorrhea for example, or from some injury that may occur. In your case, injury may have resulted from the instruments introduced into the urethra during surgery.

When a stricture occurs, it is usually necessary to dilate the urethral passage by use of a dilator, or a sound as it is called. Sometimes periodic stretching is required, perhaps for the patient’s lifetime in difficult cases.

Symptoms of a stricture include marked diminution of the urinary stream, a forked or a spray urinary stream.

If strictures are neglected they may result in serious infections and damage, including kidney damage or even death.

Physicians now hope that they are close to achieving methods of treatment that can eliminate a condition that has been dangerous and baffling up till now.
—Editor

• Pregnancy Problem (5057)

Sir: My age is 22 and I have been married for two years. In that time I have had trichomoniasis. I would like to know if that is the reason I cannot become pregnant. We would like to have children very much.

The doctor said that my fallopian tubes were stopped up and I have been taking treatment for that. If my fallopian tubes are blocked, how is it possible that I have a period each month?
Mrs. K. A., Illinois
(F)

Trichomonas vaginalis is not likely to be a factor in preventing motherhood.

If your fallopian tubes are blocked, surgery probably offers the best chance of correction, and surgery is not always effective.

A Rubin test may help because the injected gas may open the tubes. Talk to your doctor.

The fallopian tubes are not involved in menstruation. The menstrual flow comes entirely from the womb and is caused by the release of ovarian hormones into the bloodstream. Hence a woman menstruates even if her fallopian tubes have been removed.
—Editor

• Broken Hymen (5058)
Sir: Is it possible for a girl to cause her hymen to be broken by inserting a tampon too far into her vagina, and are there any other causes for a broken hymen other than sexual intercourse?
Mr. H. R., Arkansas
(M)

Use of tampons most often will not tear the hymen, but cause a gradual dilation of it. However, it is possible for a girl to break her hymen by using tampons if she used considerable force and pressure.

It must be remembered that there are considerable variations in the size and type of female hymens. Whether or not tampons can be used by virgins depends on whether their hymeneal opening is large enough to permit the entry of the tampon.

According to available figures, the average hymeneal opening of the virgin is 3/4″ to 7/8″ in diameter. This is large enough to allow the standard, or at least the smaller, junior tampon. In case of any difficulty or pain in insertion, of course, the virgin should not use a tampon or should consult a doctor.

Neither the presence nor the absence of the hymen is a conclusive indication of virginity or the lack of it. There are numberless ways in which the hymen may be broken.
—Editor

• Fetish? (5059) Sir: Several months ago our little daughter, age nine, took to wearing my very high-heeled shoes, the only kind of footwear I use.

No attention was paid to this in the beginning, since girls do It sometimes for fun, imitating their mothers. But when she persisted in her practice, we took special pains to stop it. But all the efforts to stop the habit were futile, the prohibition resulting in continuous grief and tears.

We are at a loss what to do. The doctors we consulted had nothing to suggest but strong measures or reasoning, all this giving negative results.

Can this be a fetish at this early age? She is perfectly satisfied wearing flat-heeled shoes in school, or outside, but it is only high heels at home.

What can we do? If she is to continue in high heels are they really harmful? Since this has happened, we have found that there are other families who have the same problem.
Mrs. F. J., California
(F)

What you have described indicates only that your nine-year-old daughter is still very much a child. Most young children delight in wearing adults’ clothing.

Such actions rarely indicate a development of fetishism. An attraction to an object, you must remember, is a fetish only when it is a symbol for a sexual object, and becomes necessary for sexual gratification.

It may be that your daughter will outgrow this phase in a short period. The problem is primarily that of discipline, which will have to depend on the kind of relationship you have with your daughter.

Constantly worn, high heels are a detriment to health. They put the body in an awkward position and are detrimental to spinal balance.
—Editor

• Prolonged Coitus (5060)
Sir: I have observed that most writers on sex stress the importance of foreplay before intromission. Being without this experience I cannot agree or disagree, but many times the following question has come to my mind. Is there such a thing as the period of foreplay being too long? Also, is prolonged sexual union good or bad?
Mr. A. R., Penna.
(M)

To answer your second question first, prolongation is largely a matter of personal choice and capability on the part of the male to sustain an erection during prolonged play. Most men ejaculate several minutes after intromission.

Actually no answer to your question can be given that would apply to all men. The most accurate answer probably is that prolonged sexual union is good for some, not good for others and is possible for some and impossible for others.

The answer to your first question also depends upon the individual. An extended foreplay will cause some males to lose their erection through exhaustion or ejaculation, thus making intromission impossible. Too extended foreplay where friction is employed may irritate the tender membranes of both the male and the female, in some cases. Usually, husband and wife will be able to recognize the point at which they are ready for coitus.
—Editor

• Insatiable Sex Desire (5061)
Sir: I am interested in knowing whether nymphomania (insatiable sex desire in a female) can be cured. If not, are there any ways by which the sex cravings can be lessened? Also, is this condition common among women?

Mrs. W.J., Illinois
(F)

Nymphomania by itself is not a disease which can be cured. Physicians today believe that it is usually a symptom of some kind of emotional disorder or psychological disturbance. What is necessary then is to treat the original emotional condition which is causing the excessive sexual craving which cannot be satisfied.

If the cause can be removed, the symptom of excessive sexual desire will also disappear.

It is very often a difficult condition to discover and treat and in many cases treatment is unsuccessful. Sex cravings can in some cases be lessened by drug or hormone therapy, taken on advice of a physician. Nymphomania cannot be said to be very common.
—Editor

• Effect of Frequent Erection (5062)
Sir: I should like to know whether erection of the penis several times daily caused by excitement such as might be caused by dancing or touching or other forms of sex stimulation, but without ejaculation, is harmful to any part of the body.
Mr. L. J., Ohio
(M)

Erection several times a day or night without orgasm would usually not be likely to cause harm to any part of the body.

Constant sexual excitement over a lengthy period of time might bring about an emotional upset or a nervous condition, or possibly have an adverse effect on the prostate and related sex glands.
-Editor

•Sex Ethics (5063)
Sir: Is it considered wrong in making love for embraces and acts other than intercourse to take place between a husband and wife?

Also would a husband’s oral-genital act have any effect on preventing pregnancy?

Mrs. T. B., California
(F)

Your questions involve problems both of ethics and of physiology. Oral-genital acts have no bearing at all on pregnancy, if they are followed “by coitus. Conception of course takes place only when the male sperm meets and fertilizes the female egg, usually in the fallopian tubes.

As to your question concerning whether these practices are wrong, we can only say this: All sexologists and many religious and ethical leaders agree that practices which are mutually agreeable to both the husband and the wife are in no way wrong and that acts which give gratification to both individuals involved are good and healthful acts.

The practices described in your letter are certainly as old as mankind and are very common today. They are in no manner unhealthy if both husband and wife are healthy and clean.
—Editor

• Male Fertility (5064)
Sir: Is it possible for a man to be infertile at one period of his life and several years later to become fertile? Specifically, if a man should be told by a doctor that he is infertile and his wife should conceive, can he assume the child to have been that of another man? If several years later, however, the doctor said that he was now fertile and the wife conceived again, the child might be assumed to be his. Is this correct?

What tests are used to establish male fertility and is there any known medical treatment that will help an infertile male?

Mr. S. G., Louisiana
(M)

All men appear to undergo both fertile and infertile periods from time to time.

Establishing definite fatherhood is very complex and often impossible.

Your assumption that if a male is told that he isn’t fertile and his wife conceives the child is therefore the child of another man cannot be made either legally or medically, unless it could be proven that at the time of conception the husband was definitely sterile. Many men who are relatively infertile have been able to father children.

Methods of helping an infertile male include surgery in select cases, advice on diet, rest, relaxation, drinking and correction of glandular disorders.

Medical tests for male fertility include examination of the semen and prostate fluid, basal metabolism, blood count, Wassermann, urinalysis and testicular biopsy. Although the methods have been constantly improved, they have been in widespread use for many years. (See also “Disputed Paternity Cases,” page 369 of this issue.) – Editor on the foreskin of the male, are common to both sexes. It is best to consider them as being similar to wartlike growths on any other part of the body.

Many persons who have not had any sexual contact, including children, often get these warts.

Generally, the warts should not affect a person’s sexual habits unless they are present in great mass. Treatment of the condition by a physician is relatively simple. Some doctors apply a drug to shrink the growths; some resort to circumcision; others use electrical cautery.
—Editor

•Homosexuality Problems (5069)
Sir: I am 22 years old and I just got out of the Air Force with an undesirable discharge for homosexuality.

Since I’ve got out of the Air Force I have had trouble getting a job. What I want to know is this: is there any way that I can get to be a normal person so that I can go out and get a good job and make a living?

I do not get any real satisfaction from any acts with other men. The doctor in the Air Force put me through four days of tests and he said that I had a fairly high intelligence and that I was mentally sound, but that my emotions were mixed up. He didn’t say how to get my emotions straightened out.

Mr. H.P., Maryland
(M)

Homosexuality has nothing to do with intelligence—many persons of very high degrees of intellect and ability in various fields have been homosexuals. It is also, in the opinion of most experts, not a disease that can be “cured.”

It is a deviation in sexual behavior, whose causes are not completely understood. A major factor which operates to cause this sex deviation is psychological conditioning. Other possible causes are failure to develop from an immature stage of sexuality, glandular disturbances, cultural pressure, a possible inherited predisposition and a lack of heterosexual outlet.

There are many degrees of homosexuality. The most scientific method of rating this was developed by the late Dr. Kinsey and his associates. This was a seven-point scale, which indicated a range from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual. It has been found that in the case of a person with a 100% homosexual orientation, treatment has had little effect in changing the nature of the individual’s sex drive. Treatment can, however, help such individuals in resolving many of the emotional disturbances accompanying homosexuality and help them to adjust better.

Where a person is bisexual, change has been effected in some cases, particularly where there is great desire to change, as in your case.

Treatment requires individual attention from trained medical and psychiatric personnel. Diagnosis and recommendations cannot be made in general and from afar. If you wish to change, it is important that you seek psychiatric help.
—Editor

• Rh Factor (5070)
Sir: My wife and I have different Rh factors and blood types. My wife is Rh negative. I am Rh positive. We have three children. When the last child was bom the doctor expected complications because of the Rh factor and advised us not to have any more children. Since then my wife has had two incomplete abortions and I am much concerned about her health, and the health of the children. We have been told that an Rh baby either has a short life or is born with or acquires mental or physical diseases. Mv question therefore is: What effect does the Rh factor have on either the mother or child?

Because of the Rh factors involved between my wife and myself our doctor thinks it best that either my wife or myself become sterile. However, I have been told that sterilization tends to make a man ill-tempered and disagreeable. At present my disposition is not the best, nor is my wife’s. I would like to know whether sterilization has any ill effects, physical or emotional, upon a man or woman.

Mr. L. F., Penna.
(M)

Where the husband has Rh positive blood and the mother has Rh negative, scarcely five per cent of the mothers experience any trouble with their first child. However, having any more children may always present a serious problem, although you seem to have been very fortunate.

Any child born after the first may be stillborn, suffer from anemia, jaundice or possible mental retardation. Today in cases of blood incompatibility, doctors perform a blood – exchange when the child is born. All the defective blood of the child is drained out and simultaneously replaced by healthy new blood. If this proves successful, the babies can mature into healthy, normal adults, and there need be no ill effects in the mother.

Where such children are born without defects, there is no reason for any special concern for them or for the mother in future life.

As far as sterilization is concerned, it has no harmful physical effect. Its effect is merely to prevent conception. Sterilization of itself Would not make a man ill-tempered and disagreeable. The only change that has occurred is that the sperm cells produced in the testes no longer can travel through the sperm duct and be ejaculated.

What emotional effect there is depends entirely on the attitude of the man or woman toward the operation. Wrong attitudes can have undesirable effects, as they do in all other aspects of life.
—Editor

• Useless Virility Products (5071)
Sir: I am 49 years of age and suffer from impotence in that I am hardly ever able to obtain an erection, and if so, cannot sustain it for more than a few moments. Apparently, there is nothing wrong organically as I frequently awaken at night with full erection. However, this goes away immediately after awakening.

Recently advertisements have come to me through the mails claiming that “Royal Jelly” will restore sexual vigor. Please let me have your opinion as to whether or not this may be of some help to me. I took testosterone orally and by injection for more than a year, but was unable to note any improvement.

Mr. L. C. W., Georgia
(M)

Many unscrupulous sellers trade on the fact that the man whose sexual power is waning will clutch desperately at almost anything which offers a hope of reviving his diminishing sexual vigor. They not only make fantastic claims but charge astronomical sums for a useless product. Unfortunately, there are no “miracle” foods that can restore potency, in spite of all the exaggerated claims that have been made for “Royal Jelly” and many other products. The effect of this bee food on virility has never been in any way tested scientifically on human beings, and even its claimed effects on the queen bee are not definitely established by medical experts.

Those individuals with virility problems should not waste large sums on unproven products but should seek out and be guided by competent medical advice.
—Editor

• Wife’s Modesty (5072)
Sir: Although married more than nine years, my wife is still somewhat hesitant about disrobing in my presence. However, she is generally ready for marital relations when I am. Isn’t it unusual that after all these years she should still be modest?

Mr. L. T., Arizona
(M)

Many women have a great disinclination to disrobe in the presence of their husbands. Others will do so only in darkness. Usually the condition has nothing to do with modesty. This reluctance of a wife goes back to conditioning usually by an overanxious mother in teaching—often by bodily punishment—her young daughter what she considers proper.

Large numbers of individuals do not disrobe completely even during the intimacy of the sex act itself.

Many men on the other hand will not disrobe in the presence of their wives. Others—probably in the majority—prefer their wives to disrobe before the marital act. Another small percentage of men cannot perform the sex act or are temporarily impotent with robed partners. The nude body generally is more stimulating to the male than to the female.

The fact that your wife is hesitant about disrobing in your presence indicates her personal manner and preference. This is very good for some men —extremely bad for others. As you and your wife appear to be finding satisfaction in sex life in your marriage, no changes or departures from your present mode of living are indicated. Mutual concessions are always necessary. You are far better off than many married couples.
—Editor

• Effects of Sex Activity (5073)
Sir: What effect does use or non-use of the sex organ have on sex vigor?

If a man lives a continent life, for one reason or another, and there is little sexual activity does vigor deteriorate? And conversely, does sexual activity strengthen sexual vigor?

It is well known that any part of the body which is not used deteriorates. And, I think that includes the brain. But particularly it does affect the muscles, legs, arms, etc.

So, I have wondered why some men are strong sexually and others weak.

Mr. A. R., California
(M)

You are quite right in saying that parts of the body like muscles, legs, arms, etc., which are not used will deteriorate and that exercise is necessary for them. But this applies only indirectly to sexual ability and vigor.

Sexual desire and ability, when the body is healthy, is based primarily on the attitudes of the male and his emotional feelings. Where an individual purposely does not engage in sexual activity and turns his attention deliberately elsewhere he will reach a stage where he is no longer interested in such activity and perhaps incapable.

Often soldiers or prisoners away from all sexual stimulation for long periods of time lose sexual ability and are temporarily impotent. But in these cases it is not so much the lack of exercise which causes deterioration but rather the emotional state which is brought about by a complete lack of sexual stimulation and interest over a long period of time.

Conversely, sexual activity may strengthen sexual vigor if the activity is successful and completely gratifying. Such activity would give the person an emotional outlook which would make it possible to react with greater sexual vigor.

If the sexual activity were unsuccessful and not gratifying, as for example in the case of many persons who ejaculate prematurely or who fail for some other reason, the result may be a weakening of sexual vigor rather than strengthening.
—Editor

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ADVENTURES of the POISON SQUAD

by James Nevin Miller

IN THE city of White Plains, N. Y., not so long ago, more than 700 people suddenly were stricken with a mysterious ailment. City authorities thought the case was food poisoning. But just what kind, puzzled them. True enough, it was learned that all the victims had eaten chocolate eclairs, cream puffs or Boston cream pies. However, none of the custard-filled pastries appeared to be “spoiled” although it was suspected that contaminated custard filling might have been the source of the poisoning.

Therefore, the city officials turned over samples of the pastry to the New York office of the U. S. Food and Drug Administration. These Government experts in turn sent the pastry to the Washington laboratories of the Administration.

Very quickly, the Federal investigators, aided by local authorities cleared up the situation by tracing the source of the spoiled food to one manu- facturing bakery in Westchester County, seizing and destroying all shipments sent out on the same day as the food poisoning outbreak, and identifying the deadly bacteria that caused the large-scale illness.

Thrills are commonplace to these health sleuths, who are known unofficially as Uncle Sam’s “Poison Squad.” Their job is to guard the safety of your pantry by tracking down, armed with ingenious laboratory and field methods, outstanding cases where moldy fruits and vegetables, contaminated sea foods, spoiled canned goods, and doubtful-looking imported edibles offer a serious menace to the health of the nation.

Just a few of the Poison Squad’s recent achievements, besides the settlement of the poisoned pastry case, include: the rounding up, during a three months period, of nearly a quarter million shipping cases of canned salmon, an appreciable percentage of which was spoiled; the investigation of a food poisoning outbreak in Philadelphia somewhat similar to the one at White Plains; and the discovery of the cause of a strange “epidemic” of the parasitic disease known as trichinosis, at Williamsville, N. Y.

Seizure of poisonous, decomposed or filthy foods is like stopping a murderer’s bullet in flight, says Dr. A. C. Hunter, chief bacteriologist of the Poison Squad. Oftentimes such seizure has been criticized as only a worthless gesture that may be compared to the arrest of a murderer’s revolver after it has slain its victim. Dr. Hunter does not agree. He says it is better to protect the public health by confiscating dangerous foods before they can cause injury than it is to prosecute after the damage is done. Seizure is the prompt and effective weapon which is the first reliance of the Food and Drug Administration.

Were it not for the vigilance of the Poison Squad your family right now might be eating apple butter or apple jelly containing lead or arsenic. Recently a jury, after studying a thorough investigation by the Federal food sleuths, found a big fruit company in the state of Washington guilty of a violation of the Food and Drugs Act in shipping interstate stocks of apple scrap which contained residues of poisonous lead and arsenical sprays. About 46,000 pounds of the scrap had been seized by the undercover men assigned to the case.

Surprisingly enough, nearly one-third of the time, money and effort expended by Uncle Sam’s food policemen is being devoted to protecting the public from the danger of poisons used in sprays to combat insect pests and diseases that attack fruits and vegetables. Every year thousands of carloads of fruits and vegetables are given painstaking laboratory examination to detect traces of such health-destroying residues. However, many of the states are cooperating and the situation is improving rapidly from year to year, officials say.

But, to complete the story about the White Plains poisoned pastry case. Aided by local health officers, the Federal food sleuths, as mentioned earlier, traced the source of the spoiled food to a single manufacturing bakery in Westchester County and rounded up and destroyed all shipments sent out on the same day as the food poisoning outbreak.

Meantime New York agents of the Food and Drug Administration made a thorough inspection of the bakery that made the pastry and found not a single trace of any unsanitary conditions. To this day the case is somewhat enshrouded in mystery, but it is believed by the Government scientists that the cream-filled pastry became poisonous mainly because it became unduly exposed to warm temperatures without proper refrigeration.

This outbreak and many other somewhat similar ones emphasizes that cream-filled pastries, since they are ideal for the growth of bacteria, should be produced, handled and refrigerated with extraordinary care if they are to be held any length of time before consumption.

A good many months ago New York City members of the Poison Squad tracked down 15 cases of the parasitic disease known as trichinosis, at Williamsville, N. Y. The outbreak, like others occurring in the United States, was traced to the eating of raw, or improperly cooked pork that was infested with the parasite known as Trichinae. Although 8 of the 15 persons affected were confined to hospitals, no deaths were reported. This fact is attributed to the prompt action of the Federal health sleuths, aided by Dr. Myron Metz, local health officer, who obtained a list of the buyers of the infected pork and advised each person to call a physician in case he felt sick.

A case of food poisoning in North Dakota, in which 12 persons died from eating home-canned peas, has prompted the United States Department of Agriculture to call attention again to a method of canning non-acid vegetables in the home to guard against the deadly botulinus poison.

In the canning of non-acid vegetables—peas, asparagus, beans, corn, beets, and spinach—the only safe course is to destroy all bacteria that may be present by canning under steam pressure, according to the Bureau of Home Economics. In the case of acid vegetables and fruits, such as tomatoes, apples, peaches, and gooseberries, the bacteria are killed at boiling temperature (212° F.) but with non-acid vegetables there is no assurance that the botulinus organisms will be killed by processing in boiling water unless the material is heated for six hours or longer. Obviously, a 6-hour treatment of peas or similar vegetables would result in a very unattractive product. A much shorter heating time is required at a temperature of 240° or 250° F., such as may be obtained in a pressure cooker.

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Milk Cured My Nerve Shock

The Story of the Physical Regeneration of W. J. McLemore

An Interview and Introduction by Edwin F, Bowers, M. D
ILLUSTRATION BY LEONARD WHITNEY

ONE of the most deplorable, disheartening and distressing results of the War is our crop of cripples. The cruelly maimed, the pathetic blind, the derelicts who have lost legs or arms in the bestial, bitter game, are figures of sorrow. They affect every decent-minded man or woman with an overshadowing sense of resentment and protest at the futility of it all.

But even more sorrowful and disconsolate are the cripple-minded—those battered wrecks of the carrion-crowded field and the noisesome ditch.

Scenes of terror, and of horror piled on horror, have sapped the foundations of their reason, and tumbled the normal functioning power of their brain and soul into a pit digged by madness.

The asylums for the insane all over the land thrill uncannily to the shriek and the eerie moan of these soul-wounded, these valorous soldiers—whose nerve and brain control was just a little too unstable to stand the strain of going down to hell —and coming out again untouched by its red terror.

And then there is the other great army, built of somewhat sterner soul-stuff, and yet not so staunch as to leave them altogether untouched by the brain-battering.

“Shell shock,” medical men call it, and very curious and interesting—to the pathologist—are the symptoms it exhibits.

There may be only a lapse of memory, an inability to correlate faces, places and incidents, as was apparent in the case of one fine-looking young chap who stopped me on the street the other night, and courteously requested to be directed to Sixty-fifth Street and Central Park West. He was on Sixty-fifth Street. Yet he had absolutely no sense of direction—notwithstanding the fact that he had visited this particular apartment house hundreds of times both before and since he came from France.

In every other respect, save the amnesia concerning location, he seemed absolutely normal. During the brief interval that elapsed while I escorted him to the apartment house he sought, I got his history.

He appeared normal in every respect save that of inability to focus in the mind the fact of the location of even the most familiar place. Consequently he had to solicit the aid of policeman or passer-by in order to find his way back to his own domicile.

He said he knew of scores of chaps who were in identically the same condition as that in which he found himself—except that in some of them the amnesia took the form of being unable to remember one’s own name, or the name of any one—no matter how well-known— whom the shell-shocked victim might meet.

Then there is the insomnia victim, for whom sleep has been murdered, by a thousand Macbeths. There’s the bloodstained hand that refuses ever again to be washed clean; the scream of the opponent into whose vitals the piercing bayonet had been driven; the strangling death clutch of the comrade, shot at his side; the long days and nights of forced march, of body driven to the point of utter Exhaustion, with the still longer night, dragging its trail of hours across a sleepless vigil; all these shocks and strains have broken down brain normalcy.

The result is confusion worse confounded—a complete submergence of the reasoning faculty in certain directions, and a greater or less disturbance of every function of nutrition, assimilation and elimination.

Sometimes this disturbance may take the shape of a terrible and unshakable depression—as in the case of the gallant Colonel Whittlesey.

Whittlesey, it will be remembered, was the Commander of the famous “Lost Battalion”—surrounded and cut off from all contact with other Divisions for a chain of days and nights that dragged themselves into seeming years.

Hardly a minute of this age that he and his men were not at touch and go with Death—that rifle ball, grenade and bomb were not at their deadly work in the ranks of his splendid troops.

The indomitable will forced the merely physical body to a sturdy defiance—even though the supreme sacrifice be demanded to make their defiance good We all know the story of the escue. It is a page from the golden sheaf of treasured deeds—a saga in which the rune of heroic accomplishments shines brightly.

Whittlesey’s body was rescued. But his sensitive soul was mortally wounded in the Argonne. And, many months after, it claimed its right to rest—free from the memory of the coil of horror with which it had been entwined.

Let us hope the deep waters of the Atlantic purged the great white soul of Whittlesey of the load of melancholy, too heavy to be longer borne.

There are, in various Government institutions scattered throughout the country, and in homes where they are more or less dependent, thousands upon thousands of shell-shock victims, in every conceivable stage of abnormalcy. They are being treated by Government doctors, and by physicians in private practice, in the main with but little success. They get the bromides, hyocine, strychnine, caffeine, and their other drugs regularly enough.

But not a very large percentage of them are really cured—even though they may be discharged as cured after many months of treatment.

For one principal cause of the condition has not been removed. This cause is toxemia.

“When the nerves have been shocked by the soul-wounds of the modern hell called “war,” normal functioning of the digestive organs is completely upset. Also, the functions of the endocrine glands—the ductless glands—are thrown out of gear. This disturbance of digestion and of gland functioning, in turn, produces a disturbance in metabolism—that process by which the food is finally converted into tissue cells, and the waste products of the cells properly eliminated.

If there is faulty food conversion and faulty elimination of the “end-products” of this food conversion, the result is a storing up in the body of highly toxic substances.

These poisons depress, and irritate, and inhibit memory.

It is their influence that so frequently causes the mental aberrations, and the various sinister effects of metabolistic disturbance.

They are not usually to be gotten rid of by “masking” the symptoms with hypnotics, sedatives or opiates; or by stimulating the organism with “tonics” and cell irritants.

They are, on the contrary, best gotten rid of by preventing the under-oxydation of the proteid molecule which is so often the cause of these disturbances. And by ridding the system of the accumulation of toxins that act as depressants.

One of the best and most effective methods of accomplishing this result is to get back to dietetic first principles, by first giving the system a chance to rid itself of accumulated poisons, and then by refraining from putting more poison food, or food that may most readily be changed to toxic material, into the system.

The limited fast for a period of three or four days, during which time a half dozen or more oranges are eaten each day, seems to afford the system a chance to rid itself of a large measure of its stored up toxins.

If, after this, an exclusive milk diet be adopted, a maximum of nutriment, with a minimum of waste product, will be absorbed.

Milk contains every element needed for perfect nutrition, and is eminently fitted to sustain life for an indefinite period.

It affords an easily assimilated form of nourishment, acceptable to human beings of any age, color, or previous condition of servitude.

This refers, of course, to non-pasteurized “whole milk,” and not to milk which has undergone a sterilizing process, or to milk which has been robbed of its vita-mine-yielding butter fat.

Whole fresh milk, or whole milk which has been clabbered by being set near the radiator or the back of the stove for about twenty-four hours, is more than a good food. It is a good food which acts, in thousands of cases, as good medicine.

I have had an opportunity for studying many hundreds of such cases within recent months. One of the most interesting of these was a typical shell shock, the case of W. J. McLemore, 1402 West Washington Street, Phoenix, Arizona. I’m going to let him tell his story, hoping that the results he details may stimulate some of the Government medical officers, charged with the conduct of these cases, to a trial of the method.

*******

“I never knew what a sick day meant until I entered the Service. I was in the Army two years altogether. Got along fine the first year, while in the States.

“I was sent to France, in 1918, and had about three months of active service. I didn’t pay much attention to physical needs, while at the front. There were too many other things to do.

“I developed constipation and intense nervousness, waking up one morning with my whole body burning like a coal of fire. I had big welts all over me.

“I bathed in salt water, which relieved me greatly. Then dysentery started in, and I got so weak I could hardly walk.

“Most of the Company was tear-gassed soon after this. This, I believe, was the cause of a catarrhal condition which attacked me at about this time. The catarrh affected the mucous membrane of the throat, nose and eyes in a very disagreeable manner.

“At this time they were sending men who were acting peculiarly back to the base. Men would start to show signs of weakening by worrying about little things, that ordinarily they would never bother about.

“I was among these men. I became nervous and excitable, and finally lost all control of nerve power. I believe I would have died if I had had to stay in France.

“I was very sick coming back. When I left home I weighed one hundred and sixty-eight pounds. I lost forty-five pounds within three months, however, and was so weak I could hardly drag one foot after the other. A most annoying ‘”symptom was dilatation of the pupil of the eye.

“I gave up even-thing, except to try to get my health back again. I was sent to half a dozen Government doctors, in various parts of the country. I went to Murietta Hot Springs, in California— then to Long Beach, California. These did me little or no good. I commenced a course of osteopathic and so-called Battle Creek treatments, baths and so forth, in the west.

v – “I couldn’t see much result from this treatment, so, after taking a course of treatments from Dr. Granger, of Los Angeles, I went home.’ ”Here I was treated by Dr. Charles Palmer, Dr. John J. McGlone, and Dr.

E. Payne Palmer. All these doctors said I had nervous shock, insomnia, and neurasthenia, due to shell shock.

“Electricity and baths seemed to help me somewhat, but nothing afforded permanent relief.

“I have always been interested in physical culture, and have been a reader of the Physical Culture Magazine for a number of years. One night, after lying awake a while, I was reading a copy of the Physical Culture Magazine, and the thought came to me that as I had tried about everything else, I would now give natural methods a trial.

“So I went to a sanitarium where they used physical culture methods. I was first put on a fast for three or four days, drinking twelve to fifteen glasses of water every day.

“Then I ate a half dozen or more oranges every day. I commenced to eliminate great quantities of fecal matter. This lasted for eight or ten days, after which I began to feel quite well.

“Meanwhile, I had been put on a diet of whole milk, drinking on an average of three to four quarts a day.

“Finally I got so that I slept well, and felt thoroughly rested when I got up in the morning. I found I could join in the dances which were held at the sanitarium every night, and enjoy them. And I could go to a show and really enjoy it.

“The terrible feeling of being ‘tensed up’ all the time left me, and I found I could relax once more.

“I have gained many pounds. My catarrh is better than it has been since I was gassed.

“Also, my reflexes, which were greatly exaggerated, are all right again; and the headaches from which I had also suffered since 1918, have entirely disappeared.

“The abdominal tenderness, constipation, and feeling of distress after eating are all gone, and for the first time in two years I actually enjoy my food.

“I am now eating an average well balanced diet, feeling almost as well as I ever have, and am up to ninety-five per cent, of hemoglobin—after being down to below seventy.

“This, I think, speaks pretty well for natural methods. They worked with me. I only wish thousands of our boys who have conditions similar to mine could hp given the benefits of this treament.”

Hot Water Cure for Insomnia

A NEW way of curing insomnia by hot baths to the arms only instead of to the whole body has been devised by a German physician. To use the arm-bath method, the victim of insomnia is laid on a narrow bed or bath table so that both arms can lie in hot water at a temperature of about 95 degrees, Fahrenheit. The temperature of the water is then raised slowly until the bath reaches 110 or 115 degrees. After a few minutes the patient is put to bed.

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Do Nymphomaniacs Really Exist?

Widespread confusion about oversexed women still remains

BY PAUL J. GILLETTE, PH.D.

To the average layman, the nymphomaniac is a creature out of erotic dreams—sexy, passionate, wanting nothing but his love, and willing to do anything to please him.

Many sexologists hold a different view. They do not consider the nymphomaniac a sexy woman at all. To them, she is a confused, deeply neurotic person who will make life unbearable for any man involved with her. She is incapable of achieving sexual satisfaction herself and equally incapable of satisfying a man.

The sexologist’s concept of nymphomania is no more realistic than the layman’s notions. The important question is whether nymphomaniacs really exist.

The term, nymphomania, became well known in the late Nineteenth Century, when psychology was in its infancy, and the study of sex was confined largely to physicians.

These physicians had never studied sexual behavior in itself. They had been trained only in genital anatomy and physiology. However, since no one else seemed to know any more about the subject, they were accepted as experts.

Among the sexual problems with which these physicians were confronted was that of the female who did not follow Nineteenth Century codes of sexual conduct. The physicians decided:
(1) The woman is sick because her sex drive is abnormal.
(2) Her sex drive is abnormal because it differs from the sex drives of women who are not sick.

To describe the condition of these sexually “sick” women, Nineteenth Century physicians coined the word, “nymphomania,” which quickly entered the general vocabulary. The condition which it purported to describe was recognized as a legitimate disease.

These same physicians often pronounced a woman to be nymphomaniacal simply because she desired coitus or other sex acts more frequently than once every twenty-four hours, or had sexual desires more frequently than a given partner, or wanted a variety of sexual partners.

These same symptoms, in a male, were taken as evidence of healthy, heterosexual normalcy.

The diagnosis of nymphomania was, therefore, a moral judgment, based on the premise that females are not supposed to enjoy sex. A woman labeled a nymphomaniac was also described as “degenerate,” “depraved,” “licentious,” “lascivious,” “tainted” and “wicked.”

The German sexologist, Dr. Iwan Bloch wrote in one case history: “Madame V. . . . Since her earliest years, she has pursued handsome men and given herself to them. When a young girl, by this degrading conduct she reduced her parents to despair. . . .

“Of an amiable character, she blushed when anyone spoke a word to her. She cast her eyes down when in the presence of several persons; but as soon as she was alone with a young or old man, or even with a child, she was immediately transformed; she lifted her petticoats, and attacked with a raging energy him who was the object of her insane love. . . .

“The more excesses she committed, the more she wanted to commit. It is hardly credible that such debased ideas and habits should leave intact such a sweet expression of countenance, a voice so youthful, a behavior so full of calm repose, and a glance of such clear assurance . . .” [Italics supplied] Dr. Bloch’s contemporaries are no less judgmental. Consider the report of Dr. Charles Moreau in Des aberrations dusens genesique, published in 1880, about a young girl who “suddenly became a nymphomaniac when forsaken by her betrothed.”

Dr. Moreau writes: “She reveled in cynical songs and expressions, and ran about in the streets, making lascivious gestures. She refused to put on her garments, had to be held down in bed by muscular men, and furiously demanded coitus.

“She suffered insomnia, congestion of the facial nerves, a dry tongue, and a rapid pulse. Within a few days, she had a lethal collapse.”

In the 1882 edition of Dictionaire des sciences medicale, Dr. Louyer-Villermay writes of “Miss X., aged thirty, modest and decent” who “was suddenly seized with an attack of nymphomania, unlimited desire for sexual gratification, obscene delerium.” Her fate: “Death from exhaustion within a few days.”

In 1886, summing up the data then available in Europe, Dr. Richard von Krafft-Ebing, professor of psychiatry and nervous disorders at the University of Vienna, concluded that “abnormally increased sexual desire”— which he termed “hyperesthesia”— ranged in intensity from mild to manic.

All forms, he wrote, were caused by an “hereditary taint.” The manic stage was one in which sexual desires “become so predominant that they sway completely the imagination and desire, and imperatively de- mand the relief of the effect in the corresponding sexual act.”

In the first half of the Twentieth Century Dr. Sigmund Freud, and other writers, dispelled the myth that only a “sick” woman could enjoy sex.

In his reports on male and female sexual behavior, Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey demonstrated that sexual desire is as much a part of the biological heritage of females as it is of males.

But most people today still refuse to think of women as men’s sexual equals. They regard as nymphomaniacal a woman whose sexual behavior, if exhibited by a male, would be considered normal.

Today’s sexologists generally define nymphomania as the condition in which a female “continually or periodically” experiences “extreme,” “excessive,” “abnormal,” “uncontrollable” or “insatiable” sexual desire.

The very words by which this desire is described render the definition scientifically useless. All of these terms call for a moral or philosophical judgment.

When we say that a woman’s desire is extreme, excessive or abnormal, all we really are saying is that she desires sex more often than we think she should.

When we say that her desire is uncontrollable, we mean that she has sex more frequently or with a greater variety of partners than we deem proper.

When we say that her desire is insatiable, we mean that she wants more sexual satisfaction than we think she should have.

The attempt to pass off moral judgment as scientific fails. Scientifically speaking, there is no right or proper level of sexual desire. In females as well as in males, it is influenced by a variety of physical and psychological factors.

The intensity of a given female’s— or male’s—sexual desire is not something which rightfully can be considered “sick.”

This does not mean that a woman’s sexual behavior is never connected with emotional problems.

A woman may behave sexually in a way of which she herself does not approve. An example is the girl who “just can’t say no”^and who has coitus with virtually every man who wants her, despite her lack of desire for these men and her belief that her behavior is morally wrong.

Another example is the woman who repeatedly selects sexual part- ners who abuse her and treat her in such a way that she finds it difficult to maintain her self-respect.

A third example is the woman who uses sex as a weapon to achieve nonsexual ends—for instance, the housewife who repeatedly makes a laughingstock of her husband by going to bed with his friends, or the teenager who takes on the entire high school football team in order to embarrass her mother and father.

All these women obviously have sexual problems, but the problem is not that they are nymphomaniacs. Their trouble is that they are compulsively behaving against their own best interests. What difference does it make whether we call the problem “nymphomania” or something else?

It may make all the difference in the world. When we say that a woman is a nymphomaniac, we are perpetuating the myth of female sexual inferiority and are condemning the woman on moral or philosophical grounds.

When we refuse to label a woman’s behavior and instead merely describe it with non-judgmental terms, we are taking the first step toward solving her problem—assuming, of course, that she has a problem.

Nymphomania, therefore, is one of a large number of sexual terms which sounds scientific until an attempt is made to define it. Thereupon they reveal themselves to be highly unscientific terms which accuse rather than describe.

Some women behave sexually in a way which is self-defeating, frustrating, or otherwise problematic. But, the problem is not that such women are nymphomaniacs. Nymphomaniacs do not really exist.

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BLOOD FACTORY

New plant converts human blood into variety of lifesaving products

Given two pints of human blood, science now produces enough products to (1) cure two children of measles, (2) rescue five infants from the anguish of whooping cough, (3) save the life of a hemophiliac “bleeder,” (4) help a victim of anemia, (5) aid a surgeon in performing a delicate brain operation, and also (6) enable him to make a skin graft without resort to scarring stitches.

That is sufficient warrant for the human-blood factory now operated by the Cutter Laboratories, at present the only commercial producer of the new blood products. Situated on the Berkeley, California, waterfront, the Cutter plant draws an as yet too limited supply of raw material ($4 per pint) from donors appearing at collection centers in Oakland and San Francisco.

The new products are the result of medical research into new ways of preserving blood for transfusions. Not so long ago, blood transfusions were made by direct transfer from donor to patient. Later, research by American and Russian scientists led to the development of blood banks, in which donated blood was stored for future use. But the perishable fluid had to be kept under continuous refrigeration and so was unavailable for use in out-of-the-way places.

Researchers take blood apart

Spurred by the urgent wartime demand for battlefront transfusions, researchers developed the method of converting whole blood into dried plasma. Still, plasma took up so much shipping space that the U. S. Government, hunting a space-saving substitute, assigned the task of finding one to Harvard’s Dr. Edwin J. Cohn. By the war’s end. Dr. Cohn’s laboratory had found a practical way to extract from human blood its major protein constituent, albumin, which, ounce for ounce, made up into five times more transfusion fluid than did whole plasma.

Proteins are tricky chemicals, as any one who has made a flop of poaching an egg can tell you, and so Dr. Cohn’s successful separation of the various protein constituents of human blood plasma could be quickly put to further use. With his methods it became possible to separate out other plasma proteins, such as fibrinogen and thrombin, which together account for the clotting properties of blood. Gamma globulin, a blood protein responsible for much of the body’s immunity to disease, was another product of the Harvard studies. Also extracted in pure form now is isohemaglutenin, the protein that determines a person’s blood-type.

To commercialize these valuable products, the Cutter company converted Dr. Cohn’s laboratory procedures into factory methods. The collected human blood is whirled in a centrifuge, and the heavier red blood cells separated from the plasma. Red cells, though very perishable, have

some use in medicine. However, the plasma is the raw ] material for most of the Cutter products.

By a series of dilutions with alcohol and salt solutions, the various proteins dissolved in the plasma fluid are brought down in solid form and removed by high-speed centrifugation. All manufacturing is done in near-zero rooms, for, until solidified, the proteins can be destroyed by even slight warmth.

Factory pays $4 a pint

Albumin is packaged for use in transfusions and in treating certain kidney and liver disorders.

Fibrinogen is produced as a fudgy foam, so light that dry chunks weighing only 0.7 pound fill a five-gallon jar. With thrombin added, the fibrin-foam sponge stops bleeding with amazing speed, and has become a valuable aid to surgeons. Many times more absorbent than gauze, the blood-clotting sponge can even be left behind when the wound is closed, for it is rapidly absorbed by the body. Wet, the foam is a rubbery sheet that can be used for surgical replacement of brain and other membranes. Fibrinogen and thrombin solutions, sprayed together on a wounded area, form a glue that can hold skin grafts firmly in place. The surgical glue also shows promise of promoting the healing of hard-to-knit bones.

Gamma globulin is one of the blood’s most valuable treasures. Twenty-five times richer in disease-fighting antibodies than the original blood, it is a great source of serums that are active against measles, whooping cough, and contagious jaundice.

Blood-typing, essential to the patient’s safety in surgical procedures, must often be done at breakneck speed. Isohemaglutenin is such a concentrated form of the type-producing material that it has cut the blood-typing procedure from 20 minutes to a matter of seconds. The minutes gained by use of the protein are enough of a margin to save many lives.

Further research into these products will probably produce new uses. Fibrin-foam sponge alone offers many possibilities for use in surgery as drainage ducts, sutures, and a number of other devices.

But all this good news is tempered by one sober fact: the blood factory is having a hard time collecting a sufficient supply of raw material.

Since the lapse of the highly publicized wartime Red Cross program for amassing supplies of plasma, blood donors are hard to find, even though they now get pay for their blood. As a result, many blood banks are nearly bankrupt. Their bare shelves leave them unprepared for any notable run of surgical calls. The same trouble is hampering the Cutter blood factory. Unless the situation improves, many of the new achievements of modern medicine will go unused.

See-Saw Rocks Dead Back to Life

PERSONS apparently drowned can be “rocked” back to life by a new artificial resuscitation apparatus being installed in hospitals all over England.

The machine produces 10 to 15 see-saw motions a minute to induce an exact imitation of natural breathing. It work automatically once the patient is balanced on the light metal frame.

Ten Drugs to Avoid in Medicines

THERE are ten drugs often contained in patent headache medicines which are so dangerous that every purchaser should look carefully for them on the label before buying or using the remedy.

Three are opiates, including opium, morphine and heroin. All three may cause the drug habit and should only be used under direct supervision of a competent physician. Three more habit-forming drugs are cocaine, and the similar drugs, alpha eucaine and beta eucaine.

Chloroform, the anesthetic, cannabis indica or Indian hemp, an oriental drug, chloral hydrate, used in the infamous “knock-out drops”, and acetanild, which has a powerful depressant action on the heart and blood circulation, complete the list.

Poor Kids More Immune to Germs

SURPRISING facts about the numbers of Canadian school children who get germ diseases such as measles and scarlet fever were reported to the Canadian Public Health Associations. Contrary to what might have been expected, children from the better districts of the city, a survey disclosed, were found to have had more cases of the germ diseases classed as communicable than children from poorer neighborhoods

Bacteria-Killing Tube Sterilises Air

THROUGH the magic of a gas filled tube that emits invisible germicidal rays when an electric current is passed through it, scientists hope to save us billions of dollars on our annual meat and bread bill.

Dr. Robert F. James and Dr. Harvey C. Rentschler developed the tube in the research laboratories of the Westinghouse Lamp Co., after years of experimenting. The tube consists of a slender glass tube containing a special gas. When electricity passes through the gas it emits rays that will kill the microorganisms associated with food spoilage in packing plants and warehouses.

Aside from its commercial possibilities, the new ray is being used in the medical field as the energy rays emitted by the new tube have been found to kill air-borne bacteria in a few seconds thereby offering a solution to the long baffling problem of contaminated air in hospital rooms. In operating rooms it has been found that the new ray will effectively protect the operator and assistants from contamination and minimize danger for the patient.

Tests have shown that post-operative fevers of patients who were operated upon under the radiations of the new tube have been markedly lower and their convalescence more rapid. A transformer using less power than is consumed by a 25-watt lamp will operate tubes.

Radium Medicine Is Condemned

AN AUTHORITATIVE statement of the probable uselessness and even more probable dangers of drinking radioactive waters or taking other medicines supposed to contain radium has been issued by the American Medical Association. Evidence of helpfulness of water is not available.

“It is possible for a woman to enjoy satisfactory sex relations after surgical removal of her clitoris.”

How is that at all helpful? It’s possible for you to have half your brain removed and have no real impairments. It’s just not terribly likely.

WHAT IS YOUR SEX QUOTIENT

BY taking this test, you can measure your sex knowledge. Check whether the answer to each statement should be True or False. Compare your answers with the correct answers below. Give yourself 10 points for each correct answer and add the results. Your final score is your S.Q.

A score of less than 50 indicates inadequate knowledge; 50 to 60 equals good; 70 or 80 equals excellent; 90 or above equals unusually superior.

1. No marriage can succeed if the wife does not achieve orgasm in almost every act of intercourse.
2. During sex relations, the heart is affected only by the physical activity.
3. It is possible for a woman to enjoy satisfactory sex relations after surgical removal of her clitoris.
4. Men who are afraid to urinate in public toilets are not necessarily homosexual.
5. Almost any inflammation of the pelvic organs can cause a woman to become sterile.
6. The fastest test for pregnancy is the so-called “rabbit test.
7. It is possible to collect and store male sperm safely and permanently.
8. Women are more responsive sexually at the time of ovulation.
9. Parents should begin their children’s sex education at puberty.
10. Homosexual acts can spread venereal disease.

ANSWERS:

1. false – Many women can enjoy sexual intercourse without a specific climax.
2. false – The emotional and psychological tension surrounding sexual activity has a powerful effect on the heart.
3. true – The nerve fibers responsible for sexual sensation can still function after removal of the clitoris.
4. true – Such fears can arise from many kinds of tensions.
5. true – Infections can cause blocking of the fallopian tubes or cervix. 6. false – Animal tests for pregnancy require a waiting period. Others do not.
7. true – Male sperm can be (and is) stored safely and indefinitely by deep-freezing.
8. false – If anything, studies show that women are more responsive around their menstrual period.
9. false – Sex education should begin as soon as the child is old enough to ask questions.
10. true – Any intimacy, especially if it involves mucous membranes, can spread venereal disease.

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OUR AMAZING NEW MEMORY PILL

BY LESTER DAVID

YOU’RE a businessman with a rough problem to analyze but your brain is fagged and answers don’t come. You slide open your desk drawer, reach for the buff-colored pills, gulp one. The scrambled wits reassemble themselves like magic and soon you’re sharp as a tack again.

You’re a salesman with a long list of customers, items, specifications and prices to keep in mind. They keep sliding out of place and you’re in trouble when you quote the wrong figures. You go on the pills and before long your memory is clicking along in high gear.

You’re a student with a dismal future in math and science. You just don’t dig numbers, equations and formulas and the failing marks are lousing up your record but good. A pill or two, taken as directed, will help you soak up more math and science than you ever thought possible.

The miracle medicine that may do all this and much more is a brownish-yellow, aspirin-size tablet called Cylert. Remember the name—chances are you’ll be hearing a lot about it in months and years to come.

If all goes well, neither the name of the pill, nor much else for that matter, will slip your mind. Because this is the learning and memory drug medical science has been seeking almost as long as explorers have searched for the fountain of youth.

The future, if careful research confirms early findings, should be dazzling.

Everyone will be using the drug to step up brain voltage. Elderly persons suffering from the ravages of senility will find their memories improved. There is even some slight hope that retarded children may be helped. As one researcher told MI: “If Cylert fulfills only a small part of the promises it now holds out mankind will receive an incomparable boon.”

The medication, newest and most sensational discovery of brain researchers, was unveiled recently at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Berkeley, Calif. When announcement was made that a drug to smarten people up actually was in the works, waves of excitement—and incredulity—rolled all across the country in scientific and medical circles.

Small wonder. The drug is so promising that three separate investigations on human subjects are underway in major medical centers throughout the United States. Dr. D. Ewen Cameron, research professor at Albany Medical Center and a distinguished psychiatrist, has been conducting tests on elderly persons at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Albany for many months. A spokesman for Abbott Laboratories of Chicago, sponsors of the drug, told MI that two other studies presently are in progress, one in the East and the other in the Mid-west.

Reports thus far show that Cylert does indeed improve human memory.

And, what is equally important, the drug apparently has no undesirable side effects. Dr. Cameron told MI recently: “There certainly is enough coming to light in our tests on people to make me feel that this is an investigation worth pursuing.”

How does it work? Cylert apparently increases the production of a key chemical found in the brain as well as in all living cells—RNA or ribonucleic acid— which is believed to play a vital role in memory and learning. Scientists have dubbed RNA the memory molecule.

Indeed, when Dr. Cameron injected the RNA substance itself into some 50 aged patients at McGill University in Canada, he found clear-cut memory improvement in many instances. The patients were suffering from either presenile or senile psychoses, with memory disturbance a prominent symptom. The RNA did nothing for other symptoms but when it came to memory-jogging, excellent to fair results were obtained in a majority of the patients. “The effects,” Dr. Cameron reported, “lasted about three or four months. Until now, nothing on God’s earth showed any capacity for improving human memory. Now profound discoveries have been made and we can do something we were never able to do before.”

The development of Cylert climaxes a series of fascinating explorations conducted all over the world on one of science’s most baffling frontiers—how man thinks and learns. To understand how it all came about, start with this remarkable experiment.

Three young scientists—Dr. Glasky and Dr. Lionel Simon, each a biochemist just turned 30, and Dr. Nicholas P. Plotnikoff, a neuro-pharmacologist— ran a memory experiment with rats in Chicago. The test cage was a small wooden chamber with a grid flooring and an escape platform outside the box. The floor was electrified so rats treading upon it could be given a mild shock.

On the first day of school the rats were given an indoctrination course: they were allowed to remain inside the chamber for 15 seconds, after which a buzzer sounded for the next ten seconds. Then followed a five-second interval during which current was applied and the buzzer sounded simultaneously. The idea was to find out how fast the rats could learn to escape.

On the second day of school half the test rats got Cylert in their food 30 minutes before being put through the buzzer-shocker test, while the others got nothing. Testing proceeded with the doctors watching how their pupils were reacting.

The ones that got Cylert reacted amazingly. They learned to avoid the . shock within five to seven seconds. The untreated rats took much longer to wise up and make a beeline for the exit. Final results: rats given the chemical learned four to five times faster than untreated rats.

Additional testing also disclosed that Cylert-treated fats retained what they had learned for long periods while the others “failed to maintain their previously learned responses and rapidly showed a decline in performance.” That is, weeks after the tests, the smartened-up rats were still hep enough to scoot to safety while the others had forgotten all they learned.

Cylert contains a brain stimulant called magnesium pemoline, which boosts the production of RNA in the cells. The drug has been used in Europe for the past several years as a mild central-nervous-system stimulant. It’s not related chemically to the notorious pep pills or amphetamines.

Doctors aren’t sure how RNA manages to improve brain performance and there is controversy over the whole matter. But one widespread theory is that RNA molecules carry thoughts in coded form, much as DNA molecules carry genetic information. DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) has been called the code of life because it governs inheritance and all our functions so RNA has • been labeled by many scientists as the code of memory and learning.

According to theory, when a particular event or thought occurs to you it is coded upon an RNA molecule, or upon a protein molecule created by RNA, and stored in one of the billions of nerve cells of your brain. It remains there, ready to come to the forefront of your mind whenever you want to call it up. If all this sounds like you’ve got something of a computer setup in your noggin, that’s exactly the point.

Scientific evidence that RNA definitely is involved in memory has come from many parts of the U.S. and Europe. Neuro-biologist Holger Hyden of the University of Goteborg, Sweden, discovered that learning can increase the RNA in the brains of rats considerably. Dr. Hyden analyzed the RNA content of untrained rat brains, then proceeded to teach a large number of rats to perform intricate laboratory stunts. After months of training the brain cells of the educated rats were analyzed. He discovered a 35 per cent increase in RNA!

At UCLA Dr. Allan Jacobson and a team set a food cup inside a rat cage. When a clicking sound was heard it meant that there was food in the cup. No sound, no chow. A group of lab rats soon learned to go to the cup when they heard the sound.

Step No. 2 was to inject RNA from the brains of the educated rats into seven untrained rodents. The latter then ‘ were put into the cage and the cups set out. Even though none had prior instruction they responded to the clicks.

At the University of Michigan Dr. James McConnell, a psychologist, gave a batch of flatworms lessons in responding to electrical shocks. Then the worms were ground up and fed to other worms, who not only enjoyed their brother worms but, astoundingly enough, inherited their education! The RNA in the educated flatworms was passed on to the untrained ones, and with it the trained response to the electrical hotfoot.

The UCLA and Michigan tests indicated that learning may be transferrable through RNA. There also is evidence that lab subjects can be made stupider by giving them RNA-inhibiting drugs.

A team of investigators at the Mental Health Research Institute on the campus of the University of Michigan divided goldfish into two test teams. Into the brains of one group the researchers injected two antibiotic drugs. The others got no drugs. Then both teams were trained to avoid electric shock traps in tanks.

The fish that did not receive the drugs remembered where the traps were for months—but the treated ones forgot within three days! The memory-destroying drugs they got are Puromycin and Acetoxycycloheximide, both of which are known to impair the manufacture of RNA in cells.

How soon will you be able to get smart pills from your drug store? At present, Cylert is classified as an experimental drug. According to revised, tightened Food & Drug Laws, the manufacturer must present adequate evidence of safety and effectiveness to government authorities before permission to market the medication is granted. •

Cancer Treated With Stale Butter

RANCID butter, or rather the chemical called butyric acid which bacteria form in fresh butter, is the newest cancer treatment reported in England by a famous surgeon.

The acid of rancid butter is not to be eaten or injected but is applied directly to the cancerous growth. For some reason, which still is mysterious, the butyric acid bites much more viciously into the cancer tissue than into the healthy tissues which surround it. A graduated dose of the acid can kill and eat away all of the diseased cancer cells without damaging the nearby healthy ones. This is the same way that radium attacks cancer.

Ceiling Movies ROUT Fears of Patient

A BOSTON dentist has discovered a new sort of “anesthetic,” in the form of motion pictures, which he claims is so effective that patients refuse to leave the chair at the conclusion of their dental work. One peculiar effect of the new “drug” is that it soothes harsh feelings against dentists. Patients no longer fear the semi-annual visit.

The movies, projected on the office ceiling, divert the patients’ attention as the doctor fixes their teeth.

Mickey Mouse and Popeye the Sailor pictures are most popular with the younger patients, according to the doctor.