No one knows for certain whether mental illnesses are primarily the result of life experiences, or of biochemical upsets, or a combination of the two.
Dr. Nathan S. Kline of New York’s Rockland State Hospital was a pioneer in proving that whatever their cause, some mental illnesses can be eased by the drugs now familiarly known as tranquilizers. By 1957 Dr. Kline had won a Lasker award for his work. And in that same year, Dr. Kline convinced him self that since drugs could ease a patient out of agitated or “manic” states, there ought to be other drugs that could ease other patients out of depressions.
Last week, for having pursued this line of reasoning to a successful conclusion, Dr. Kline, 48, won the Albert Lasker Clinical Research Award of $10,000. His citation declared: “Literally hundreds of thousands of people are leading productive, normal lives who—but for Dr. Kline’s work—would be leading lives of fruitless despair and frustration.” Patients who had been in mental hospitals so long that all hope for them had been abandoned have shown marked improvement on the “psychic energizers” developed by Dr. Kline or resulting from his work. * How many lives the drugs save among suicidal patients can never be known.
A second Lasker prize of $10,000 was given for basic medical research. The award was divided between two
California virologists: Italian-born Dr. Renato Dulbecco, 50, now at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, and Dr. (of veterinary medicine) Harry Rubin, 38, of the University of California. Starting with viruses that infect bacteria, Dr. Dulbecco went on to show the mechanism by which polyoma virus, which causes many animal cancers, infects cells. Most important was the striking and unexpected finding that the virus itself, which has a nucleus of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), does not need to multiply in order to cause cancer.
Dr. Rubin, once a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Dulbecco’s lab, worked with viruses that cause leukemia in fowl and have a nucleus consisting of ribonucleic acid (RNA). The work of these men, said the awards committee, “promises to contribute decisively to our eventual understanding of the nature of cancer.”
* Of those most widely used, four apparently work by a double-negative action, blocking an enzyme that breaks down brain-stimulating substances: isocarboxazid (Marplan), nialamide (Niamid), phenelzine (Nardil), and tranylcypromine (Parnate). Drugs with similar anti-depressant effects are imipramine (Tofranil) and amitriptyline (Elavil). All are prescription drugs, and should be taken only under close medical supervision.