Evening star., 1938-06-28

30, IOr the purposes OF the record,
the American remains unchallenged.
Hundred-ton flying boats with
stateroom accommodations for 100
or more passengers. making two-day
excursion trips to the North Pole and
round-the-world trips in week, were
predicted by Igor Sikorsky, celebrated
airplane builder and designer.
Such Queen Marys of the skyways
are practical even now, Mr.. Sikorsky
said. and probably will constitute the
next notable step in aviation develop
ment. They are about AS far as it is
possible to 60 with present knowledge,
he declared
The big passenger service ships, he
said, are more practical than super
land planes. because of the greater
ease with which they can make land
ings on wide bodies of water.
Such ship, he predicted, will have
a dance hall over whose smooth floor,
far above the clouds, passengers can
do the big apple either to swing music
coming over the radio or even pro-
duced by an orchestra on board. It
will have a promenade deck along
which honeymooners may stroll lei
surely above the cloud ocean.
Brain Electricity Made Erratic.
Drug-induced vagaries in the elec-
tricity of the brain, which may throw
light on the efficacy of the same drugs
in treatment of the mind splitting in
sanity. schizophrenia, were reported to
the scientists session yesterday.
About two years ago it was found
by accident that when victims we're
given sufficiently heavy doses of the
blood-sugar reducing drug insulin to
cause collapse and coma they often
showed great mental improvement
upon recovery.
Later it was found that another
drug, metrazol, which produces con-
vulsions similar to those of epilepsy,
had much the same effect on the
clouded minds.
Might Increase Cures.
The results were not uniform how
ever. and nobody knew why the drugs
should act as they did. From so to
IS per cent of schizophrenia patients
now show some improvement after
one or both of these drugs is given,
compared with Is per cent for whom
anything could be done previously.
II the exact mode Of action could be
determined the percentage of cures
might be raised much higher.
The problem has been placed in
the hands Of Sir Frederic Banting,
discoverer of insulin. At the Banting
Institute Of the University OF Toronto
the combined resources of the sciences
OF psychiatry, neurology. physiology,
biochemistry and physics are being
brought to bear on it. The results
reported today are among the most
definite reached up to date.
After the administration OF either
OF these drugs, 1t was reported by
J. E. Goodwin, Bsnting Institute
physicist, the brain waves" of rabbits,
ref1ecting the electric potentials of the
brain itself, undergo curious changes.
Causes Wave Confusion.
Metrazol, the Banting Institute in
vestigators found, causes four distinct
oraln-wave phases. A latent period, in
which there is no change, is followed
oy phase in which the waves slow
down and decrease In amplitude. Sud-
denly they become very rapid, with
large. slow waves intermixed. Then.
just as quickly. all the past waves
disappear and for q time there may be
no discernible brain electricity at all.
Then slow. random waves return and
may persist for an hour or more.
Insulin has its own characteristic
but quite different, pattern of brain
electricity changes. Experiments now
are going on with mixtures of other
drugs with metrazol and insulin which
both increase and decrease their ac-
ton. One has been found by means
OF which an enormous overdose of
metraz0l can be given without danger
OF killing the patient.
Brain Goes on Diet,
Previous experiments had shown
that shortly after the administration
OF heavy doses of either drug there
was a marked decrease of blood now
to the brain. This. combined with the
almost total cessation OF electrical
activity at one point in the metrazol
pattern, leads to a tentative theory
that what actually happens is that the
brain Is given q rest and starvation
cure. With blood flow reduced, the
amount OF glucose or blood-sugar get
ting into the brain and the amount
OF oxygen probably necessary for its
utilization are decreased.
The brain, it has been determined.
can eat" only sugar, but Banting In
stitute investigators have found that
it can take its sugar in two forms, one
with oxygen and the other, actually
very limited, without oxygen. They
have been unable to find any evidence
to date that the second process goes
on in either the r1etrazol convulsions
or the insulin coma state. [h
A new hypothesis Of universe Allied