Medicine: Deflation

Three years ago a 395-pound Russian housewife waddled into the office of Professor James Joseph Short of Columbia University Medical School and announced that she wanted to reduce. Undismayed, Dr. Short gave her a thorough physical examination. She was only 32 years old, was in good health. The cause of her obesity was not malfunctioning of her thyroid gland but plain overeating. Dr. Short prescribed a well-balanced diet of proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals amounting to only 600 calories a day.

Last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association Dr. Short described the historic deflation which followed, the case of a human being who parted with 60% of her body and lived to tell the tale. During the first month she lost twelve pounds, in 20 months she got rid of 239 pounds. Only discomfort she suffered was the surgical removal of an apron of skin, two feet long and one foot wide, which hung loosely over her deflated abdomen. When she weighed in at 156 pounds, said Dr. Short, “she was in excellent health and spirits.”