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UNUSUAL BIRTHS

Nature rarely errs, but when it does the results are often most extraordinary.

by E. H. Herrick, Ph.D.

IF you are acquainted with identical twins, you have probably never thought of them as the result of a birth abnormality. Actually they are, though in this case they can consider themselves lucky.

Many of these abnormalities are not so fortunate, although we rarely hear of them. Most end up merely as another case in the records of clinics and hospitals unless they are quite extraordinary.

Identical twins develop from a single fertilized egg and grow as any other one for a time, but not for long. For some unknown reason, the early embryonic cells separate into two masses and a complete child develops from each.
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Vaporizer Works in Water Glass

Hung from the edge of a glass partly filled with water, an electric vaporizing unit now available produces a medicated steam for inhalation by those suffering from respiratory ailments. The unit can be plugged into any alternating-current outlet.

Swallows New Camera to Get 16 Pictures of Stomach

A CAMERA so small that it can be swallowed without discomfort takes sixteen pictures of the inside of the stomach.

A two inch long metal cylinder contains the camera, a roll of film, and a tiny flash bulb capable of 20,000 candle-power illumination. The control plunger runs through a two-foot rubber tube attached to the cylinder.
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Solar Bath Apparatus Helps Cure Diseases of the Head
NO, THE peculiar looking device in the photo at left is not a camera, nor even a telescope, although partially resembling both. It is a new solar bath apparatus for the head and has made a great hit with the medical fraternity of Germany. The main purpose of the device is to cure sicknesses of the head, like catarrh of the nose and throat or of the ears. It reposes on a stationary upright and has an opening in under side for a patient’s head. Affected person sits in a chair while taking treatments. An ultra-violet ray machine within throws artificial sunlight upon all parts of the head. Eventually, when fully tested and improved, it is expected to cure many of the illnesses of the head.

Electric “Ear” Helps Photograph Heart Beats

Photographic records of pulsations of the human heart are produced by a portable instrument containing an electric “ear” and equipment for converting sound into light. The electric ear, a sensitive condenser microphone, picks up the heart’s sounds, which are amplified until they can be heard through a radio loud speaker. Read the rest of this entry »

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OH, YOUR ACHING HEAD!

Montefiore Hospital’s Headache Clinic is seeking to eliminate our head woe
MONTEFIORE Hospital’s famous Headache Clinic in the Bronx, N. Y., is the largest in the nation and for the past ten years has been trying to find a cure for the head misery that plagues more than 12,000,000 Americans. Clinic patients are examined for eyestrain, brain impulses and blood flow to the head. Where no organic defect is found, doctors can often relieve headaches with psychotherapy. People with migraine headaches, it has been discovered, are generally of superior intelligence. Aspirin, anyone?

262 degrees, that’s pretty damn hot.

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Body Can Take Heat that Boils Water

SWEATING it out in a metal box at more than 250° F., University of California at Los Angeles experimenters have proved that the human body can take temperatures that would cook meat and boil coffee—but only for a short time. The tests are being conducted for the U. S. Air Force to find out how pilots would react should the cooling apparatus fail in the supersonic planes of tomorrow (see Cooling “Hot” Pilots, p. 110).
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Plants Grow “BLOOD” for Human Health

THE ancient sun worshippers, it now appears, had a theory of life, and its relationship to man, which has now been proven scientifically sound.

The chemists, biologists, physicians, have discovered that life comes from the sun. Furthermore, that plant life and human life are chemically related if not one and the same basic thing. Out of the laboratory of the organic chemist comes substances that show such a relationship.

Physicians have for many years been advising people to eat more green vegetables. “Old stuff!” you say? Yes, comparatively. But the green foods, such as lettuce leaves, spinach, kales and others, contain vitamins, needed by the human laboratory of the body.
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Be Young at 100!

By Roger Dunham

Those creeping years worrying you? Forget it—old age is mostly superstition, doctors discover.

HOW long will you live? Fifty, 70, 80—maybe even 100 years—a whole century?

Till the day you die you’ll probably keep thinking you can always squeeze out at least one more year from those old bones of yours. And ever since 1848 when the average American dropped dead before 40, we have indeed squeezed out extra years until today our national life span has stretched to 67.
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So basically, you’re microwaving your arm?

Fever Machine Treats Rheumatism by Short Wave Radio

THE treatment of rheumatism by short wave radio is among the benefits which radio engineers have bestowed upon modern medicine.

An instrument which makes this possible was demonstrated before scientists recently in New York. Known as the “Radiotherm,” the device works on the same principle as a short wave transmitter. The generator is contained in the cabinet, while the radiating discs act as an antenna.

The “Radiotherm” can produce artificial temperatures as high as 98 to 105 degrees. More than 500 treatments have been given.

Pocket Vapor Bulb Operates Like Flashlight

As handy as a fountain pen, an electric vaporizer that works like a flashlight has been designed as a “pocket relief” for colds. In the head of the tiny metal case is a special bulb with two openings. A few drops of a nasal inhalant are inserted from the side. When the thumb switch is pressed, the “flashlight” batteries generate heat in the filaments of the bulb and vaporize the liquid, which is then inhaled from the top of the bulb, acting on congested nasal passages.

All that research just to discover morning breath?

Halitosis Clinic Studies Causes of Bad Breath

To discover the cause and cure of offensive breath in human beings, a novel halitosis clinic has just been set up at the Northwestern University Dental School in Chicago, Ill. Patients exhale through their mouths into a tube kept cold enough to solidify organic substances in the breath as they pass through. The frozen mass is then liquefied and tested by means of an osmoscope, an instrument shaped like a piccolo, which measures the concentrations of odors. Tests made so far indicate that offensive breath is most noticeable in the morning and that it tends to increase in concentration with advancing age.