Word: humanities
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Dramatic progress was reported last week in efforts to cure victims of massive overdoses of radiation, and to turn this new-won skill to advantage in treating victims of acute leukemia. Nub of the problem is the fact that the human blood system responds automatically to the presence of foreign protein by developing antibodies to destroy it. This is why skin grafts and organ transplants do not "take'' permanently, except between identical twins...
...while the patient's antibody production is knocked out. And in acute leukemia, when the bone marrow is secreting abnormal cells, it might be possible to destroy the marrow deliberately with massive radiation, then replace it with healthy marrow. It has worked in mice and dogs, but the human system, far more, choosy, usually gets its antibody factory working again, and thus defeats treatment with injected "foreign" bone-marrow cells...
...Donnall Thomas told an American Cancer Society seminar at Excelsior Springs, Mo. how he then placed the child between two cobalt "bombs" (equivalent to 2,000,000-volt X-ray machines) and subjected her to 800 r.-more than had ever before been given intentionally to a human being. Then he injected marrow cells taken from her identical twin sister. She is still alive and seemingly well. Though her hair fell out, it is growing back...
...Century's drama critic, the Rev. Tom F. Driver, who also teaches Practical Theology at Manhattan's Union Theological Seminary, criticized MacLeish for making his play a non sequitur by jumping down from the theological discussion between God and Satan to dwell upon J.B.'s purely human sufferings...
...when it is offered in spite of suffering, of injustice, and of death . . . The justification of the injustice of the universe is not our blind acceptance of God's inexplicable will, nor our trust in God's love, his dark and incomprehensible love, for us, but our human love, notwithstanding anything...