Evening star., 1942-01-17
Of Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Laboratory, Field
And Study
By Thomas r. Henry.

|
By Thomas r. Henry.
| It may be good for folks to 60 hungry,
a celebrated German doctor has deter
mined
Blood Of rabbits kept from three to
! five days without food is more resistant
to microbes than blood of well-fed rab-
bits.
| Presumably, the same is true for
human beings, reports Prof. w. Pfannen-
stiel in the learned Zeitschrift fur I'M
Notwithstanding, copies of which have
been distracted in the Office of the
| American Medical Association.
The experiments conducted during the
past year at the University OF Marburg,
the association warns, obviously were
| intended for propaganda purposes to lull
| the German people into complacency
over their own meager diet and convince
the scrupulous among them that the
conquered countries really should be
thankful
But, it is stressed, the results prob
ably are accurately reported and are "of
basic clinical interest" in war medicine
Dr. Pfannelstiel tested, the Journal OF
the American Medical Association re-
ports, the rate Of growth of typhoid
bacilli and staphylococci in various sam
Piles of blood both rabbit and human,
compared with that in a nutrient solu-
ton which had no bactericidal power
whatsoever.
The effect of various changes in diet
was determined. 1t has long been be-
lieved that the concentration of vita
Minis, especially vitamin c, affects the
resistance properties of the blood. But
when Pfannenstiel and his associates
deliberately reduced the vitamin content
of the food they found that there was
no essential difference.
Doctors and nurses at the university
hospital serve as human guinea pigs.
The individual whose blood showed the
highest vitamin c content had essentially
no resistance to staphylococci. The most
resistant individual had blood excep-
tionally low in the vitamin
The German doctors recognized that
vitamin C starvation now is widespread
over Europe. Partly because Of this, great
epidemics have been predicted. The tests
should clear up this worry, Pfannenstiel
says.
On the other hand, the tests showed
that worry and loss of sleep made the
blood definitely less resistant There
were repeated night afraid alarms in
Marburg during July and August Fol-
lowing each sleepless night half the
selected hospital personnel showed a
lower bactericidal power. In one case
this fell two-thirds after single alarm.
In a second individual there was a
complete loss of resistance.
"Disregarding the evident propaganda
motivation of this research" comments
the Journal of the American Medical
Association, evidence of the lack of
parallelism between vitamln C intake and
bactericidal immunity is of basic interest.
| Evidence of insomnious (sleeplessness)
| depression of natural immunity is be-
lated confirmation of belief long held
by physicians"
But in the face of the German findings
bLIG lcLtSO lCpOl lCCtiNcu DN tllt AIlell-
can Medical Association from England
shows that. despite frequent afraid
alarms, the amount of Infectious disease
actually has declined during the past
year.
Scarlet fever and diptheria are less
prevalent There are only about a
sixth as many cases of measles as a
year ago. Spinal meningitis incidence
has gone down rapidly
The only major epidemic is vhooping
cough. There are still more than 5000
cases a week, but not long ago the
figure was 1000
Two new forms of bubonic plague, the
devastating BLACK death" of medieval
Europe, have been reported to the United
States Public Health Service.
They were found by DR.. Atilio Macchi-
avello of the staff of the an-American
Sanitary Bureau, in the course of a sur
vey, with several Brazilian specialists, of
the plague situation in Brazil.
The malady, always spread by rat
feas, usually is highly fatal. For several
years, however, Brazilian physicians have
known a children's disease called "ingua
de frio," which had some of the char
acteristics of plague, but with mild and
transitory symptoms. There is fever and
swelling of various glands. 1t seldom
attacks any one more than Is years old.
A case seldom is fatal.
For the first time DR.. Macchiavello and
his associates demonstrated that this is
actually plague, due to the same organ
ism. 1t occurs only where there are
scattered cases of the far more serious
adult plague, but tends to disappear
when real epidemic starts. The medi-
cal interest in the discovery lies in the
fact that the disease may be due to a
very attenuated form of the plague virus
in f1eas and may confer immunity against
the more serious FORM
The other new type was observed for
the first time and is called "multiglandu-
lar fever This disease also is seldom
fatal, but is far more serious than the
malady of children. Victims do not
recover full health for many months
This disease is characterized by high
fever, severe anemia and loss of weight,
and the swelling of several glands ct the
same time These swellings are some
times as large as an orange
1t was found to be due to the ordinary
plague organism, although apparently
with somewhat reduced virulence, usual
ly in association with the organism of
~ Tn,