Medicine: In New Orleans

The American College of Physicians met in New Orleans last week, for its twelfth annual clinical session. Many were the papers and widespread the interests of the physicians and scientists there assembled.

Cancer. Dr. Maud Slye of Chicago University said that the Mendelian law of heredity applied to cancer susceptibility and cancer resistance developed through 67,000 individual studies on mice. Persistently Pathologist Slye bred the reliable rodents. Twenty years she worked and has finally concluded that cancer is not contagious, but tendencies for or against it can be inherited in mice. Twenty-five generations has she bred absolutely free of cancer because the original stock had been eugenically chosen. Cancerous ancestors infallibly transmitted the disease down the generations infallibly. Said Dr. Slye: “If we could manage human breeding as expertly as we can manage mouse breeding, it might be possible to develop a race, or at least a segment of a race, that we knew was absolutely immune to cancer.”

Yellow Fever. From Havana came Dr. Aristides Agramonte, member of the yellow fever commission appointed by the U. S. just after the Spanish American War. Graphically he described the adventures of the scientific pioneers who discovered the mosquito carrier* of yellow fever in 1900. Enthusiastically he lauded the labors of Dr. Walter Reed, Dr. James Carroll, Dr. Jesse W. Lazear.

Show. Adjoining the meeting hall was a medical exhibit. Medical literature, pharmaceutical products, surgical supplies, health foods vied for attention. Outstanding among the popular shows was the new cure for hay fever. Like a kitchen stove it looked, with a pipe leading out through a fake window. Fresh air enters the pipe, is drawn into the body of the contrivance where it is purified of all pollen, and is then released into the room for respiratory purposes. Not much protection on a country ramble, but a great relief to the cityfolk.

* Stegomyia fasciata.