Capsules

P: At the height of the Salk crisis last June, Detroit's Parke, Davis & Co.

stopped producing the vaccine, has not shipped a drop since. Last week Parke, Davis gave the reason: it is experimenting with ultraviolet rays in processing the vaccine. This could give greater assurance of safety. Also, ultraviolet might make it possible to produce a more effective vaccine, using less formaldehyde--which sometimes kills the virus so thoroughly as to make the vaccine ineffective.

P: It is nonsense, said the A.M.A. Journal, to advise mothers to cut out all sweets (including fruits and other foods containing natural sugar) from the diet of children with high rates of tooth decay. It is all right in such cases to cut out candy, .heavily sweetened drinks, etc., but to eliminate all carbohydrates is unwise--and also impossible.

P: Every medical student knows that the length of the small intestine is 22 ft.

or thereabouts, for his textbook has taught him so"--but it is not true, reports Dr. Betty Underhill in the British Medical Journal. In 100 autopsies she found men's small intestines ranging from 16 ft. to 25 ft. 9 in., women's from 11 ft. to 23 ft.

6 in. Such variations can be life-and-death matters in surgery.

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