Word: aran
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...aRan for Collins in sixth
...pioneer who has never stopped pioneering. Before Nanook, factual films were mostly travelogues-patronizing glimpses of exotic peoples in far-off places. Flaherty concentrated on the struggles of man against his environment. Because of his choice of settings and subjects (Moana, in the South Seas; Man of Aran, on a remote island off the coast of Ireland; Elephant Boy, in India), he was sometimes attacked as a romanticist. The "realists" who belabored him later discovered that much of their own "realism" was merely a fad; Flaherty's pictures have not faded nearly so fast...
After long study of how the body is affected by various atmospheric conditions (temperature, humidity, etc.), Curry decided that the health-governing material in air is a mysterious gas he calls "aran." Aran's concentration in the air, Curry computed, varies with the time of day (it is low at night and high in midafternoon, and with the weather (low in warm south winds, high in cool north winds). He is pretty certain that varying the concentration of aran can increase or decrease inflammation, start bleeding, and produce all sorts of spasms...
...Breath Counts. Do these findings open up a breath-taking new view of medicine and therapy? If Dr. Curry's theory works out, many diseases can be treated by regulating the air that people breathe. It's easy: just send patients to a climate with the right aran content or treat them in aran-conditioned hospitals. Pulmonary T.B.. says Dr. Curry, heals much faster in aran-rich air. He thinks that aran, and the theories developed from it, might also be used in treating schizophrenia, goiter, sterility...
...Curry made a report on his findings last week before the American College of Allergists, in Atlantic City. U.S. doctors kept a firm grip on themselves (though some of their private opinions were unprintable). Pessimists among them feared that the aran theory, whatever its merits, would prove a gold mine for quacks and medical faddists...