Capsules

P: In the past 18 months 1,500,000 U.S. cigarette smokers have sworn off, the U.S. Bureau of the Census reported after completing a survey of the smoking population for the National Cancer Institute. Still smoking: 38 million, most of whom run through 10 to 20 cigarettes a day.

P: One in every ten members of the U.S. Army and Air Force has the wrong blood type marked on his identification tag, a group of doctors reported in the U.S. Armed Forces Medical Journal. Chief causes: rapid or careless testing, clerical errors. Chief danger: death from transfusion of incompatible blood types.

P: Parents should stop worrying about eyestrain among teen-age children, Dr. Warren A. Wilson told a panel on adolescent problems in Los Angeles. Reason: eyes are designed to last 100 years, barring disease or injury. Ophthalmologist Wilson advised parents not to force adolescents to wear glasses if they don't want to: "It really doesn't do any good to force them, and it doesn't make that much difference."

P: Drs. Ray C. Anderson and Harold W. Hermann of Minneapolis made a plea, in the A.M.A. Journal, for doctors to report extremely rare cases of leukemia in identical twins to medical groups involved in leukemia research. Purpose of the request: to learn more about hereditary factors in the disease by studying its effect on two humans coming from the same ovum.

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