DOCTORS HAD FOUND THREE NEW CLUES

Chronicle (Levin), 18 February 1947, Page 3

DOCTORS HAD FOUND THREE NEW CLUES

New developments in man's struggle against cancer, poliomyelitis and tuberculosis were reported recently. A suggestion that the hitherto unknown cause of cancer might be a virus was supported by several American research workers, according to John O'Neill, "New York Herald-Tribune" science corrcspondent. The new virus, its elements so small that 2,000,000 of them in line measure one inch, was said to ereate malignant growth centres in normal cells. Its infection spread through the blood stream. If the virus theory were true, cancer could be classed among the other virus ihfections — smallpox, measles, mumps, influenza and infantile paralysis. To attack the cancer virus Rochester University's Dr. George Boyd proposed high frequency electrical vibrations. Another virus clue came from Californian research workers Dr. Hubert Loring and Dr. C. E. Schwerdt. They had isolated the elusive poliomyelitis virus in an 80

per cent. pure culture. Now they could experiment on how to kill it, produce a vaccine to prevent infantile paralysis infections. But there was a long way to go before it would be fit for human application. ' i Vaccines that worked on rats, mice and monkeys would have to be developed before human experiments could be made. It had takcn the doctors th'ree years to achieve their first step, but it was a good start. From America's famous TB research centre Mayo Clinic, came a report on the new drug streptomycin, an antibiotic mould similar to penicillin. A research trio— Drs. H. C. Hinshaw, William Feldman and Karl Pfuetze — had obscrved streptomycin treatments on 100 patients over the past two years. Results were "definitely and consistently encouraging." '■ 1 1 1 1 'J j' 1 *