Word: diphtheria
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...staff: about 600 doctors, 600 nurses, 60 sanitary engineers, 40 dentists. But it had plenty of miracle workers like DDT and penicillin. To trouble spots, UNRRA shipped: 7.5 million pounds of DDT powder, 809,550 million units of penicillin, one million pounds of sulfa drugs, six million cc of diphtheria toxoid, 5,167 million units of antitoxin. By 1946's end, UNRRA reported, typhoid, which had caused Europe's most serious postwar epidemic, was under control, diphtheria had been greatly reduced, typhus was rare, smallpox and plague had virtually been wiped...
...with only ten states reporting, the ten leading causes of death were: 1) pneumonia and influenza; 2) tuberculosis; 3) diarrhea, enteritis and intestinal ulcers; 4) heart disease; 5) cerebral hemorrhage; 6) nephritis (kidney inflammation); 7) accidents; 8) cancer; 9) diphtheria; 10) premature birth...
Since then, said Dr. James Crabtree of the Public Health Service, immunization has laid diphtheria low. Better sanitation (including fewer flies because of fewer horses) has knocked intestinal infections, such as diarrhea and enteritis, off the top list. Sulfa drugs and penicillin have taken the edge off pneumonia. Tuberculosis has yielded somewhat to better treatment and early X-ray diagnosis. To take their places, non-germ diseases have moved up. Last year's list: 1) heart disease; 2) cancer; 3) cerebral hemorrhage; 4) nephritis; 5) pneumonia and influenza; 6) accidents (except motor vehicle); 7) tuberculosis; 8) diabetes; 9) premature...
Following up this lead, the two Russian researchers tried other toxins. Two-diphtheria and tetanus-seemed to work. Tested on cancerous mice, tetanus toxin checked or reduced tumors in half the cases. Diphtheria toxin did even better: out of 65 mice with cancers, it cured 39, stopped tumor growth in 19. Unlike KR, the toxins have still to be tested on humans. U.S. researchers, fascinated but uncertain, are pursuing experiments along similar lines...
Died. Mary Beard, 70, former director of the American Red Cross Nursing Service (1938-44), one of the organizers of the wartime Nurse's Aide Corps; after long illness; in Manhattan. After recovering from a childhood attack of diphtheria, she resolved "to help sick people," spent her life studying and improving nursing and nurse education throughout the world...