NEW FEVER PILLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 217, 12 September 1940, Page 4

NEW FEVER PILLS.

DRUG FOR WOUNDS. TONSILS REMOVAL DELUSION. NEW YORK. Scarlet fever can be prevented Ly pills after meals. Development of these immunisation tablets was described before the American Medical Association here by Drs. George F. and Gladys H. Dick, of Chicago, to whom is due the iirst effective protection against this serious disease of childhood. Immunisation is usually produced by inoculation. This is still by far the most effective method, the Chicago doctors reported, but sometimes is inadvisable with extremely nervous children or those with weak hearts. Six years aco they found that their scarlet fever toxin, in the form of a powder taken by mouth, was effective in protecting against the disease. The drawback was that it made the children deathly sick. This, they found, wae clue to the fact that it remained too long in the stomach. The new pills are coated with a substance which does not dissolve in the stomach, but only after it reaches the intestinee. The" worst reaction has been an occasional stomachache.

J May Save Many Soldiers. Sulfanilamide may eave the lives of many wounded soldiere in the present war if it is given immediately to prevent the growth of bacteria in wounds, Dr. John S. Lockwood, of the Unive.rsity of Pennsylvania, told the doctors. This practice now is being followed by British Army 6urgeons. For three years, Dr. Lockwood said, the drug has been given at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital in all cases of compound fractures. It also is being used in industrial practice to reduce likelihood of infection following accidents. He warned that after having been given sulfanilamide a patient never should be allowed to return to his machine because his movements are likely to be uncoordinated. During the last few months, Dr. Lockwood said, the practice has grown up of placing sulfanilamide . crystals directly in wounds. The method should be used only as an adjunct to administration by mouth, he said. An Old Belief Exploded. In only about 20 per cent, of cases is removal of tonsils of benefit to children, reported Dr. Albert D. Kaiser, of Rochester, N.Y. The operation, he said, often is ba*ed on nothing more than hope that it will do some gor.d, and on a current belief that the tonsils are a gateway to infection.

Studying a large group of children, he found that for three years they had fewer colds after then- tonsils were cut out, but that for the next seven years they had more than did children who had been left alone. There appeared to be a definite trend towards bronchitis and pneumonia after the operation, Dr. Kaieer found. His studies showed there was no lasting effect at all en rheumatic infections.

The problem of the doctor, he said, is to find the 20 per cent, of children in whom the tonsils are reallv a source of infection. A Man's Bite Is Dangerous. The bite of a man is not quite so dangerous as that of a rattlesnake, but it is extremely poisonous, Dr. Frank K. Boland, of Emoy University, Atalanta, reported. While man has no poison sacs like the snake, Dr. Boland said, he carries all .sorts of .dangerous germs in his mouth which infect even a slight scratch with the. teeth. When human beings bite, he eaid, it is ueuaJly in a fight when the fists are clenched. As soon as the muscle's relax, the infection is forced deep into the tiseu<.-s. The worst biters. Dr. Boland said, ire. women. They constituted -'1 of hie u0 eases. Men usually set infected only by punching somebody in the mouth. Fingernails and teeth' are a womanV chief weapons in fighting with another woman.— (X.A.N.A.)