Word: lepra
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...months, the 44-year-old leprosy patient lay in Jerusalem's Rothschild Hadassah University Hospital, plagued with insomnia and skin eruptions, muscle and joint pains, and high fever-the devilish collection of leprosy-caused symptoms known as lepra reaction. In a last-ditch effort to ease his pain and that of five similarly afflicted patients, Israeli Dermatologists Felix Sagher and Jakob Sheskin decided last November to try an unorthodox remedy: thalidomide...
Leprosy is far from a major health problem in Israel, but there are at least 12 million cases in remote tropical and subtropical areas of the world. And though thalidomide, thus far, has been used solely to reverse the dangerous lepra reaction, the Israeli doctors are continuing the dosage to see if it has any effect on the disease itself. Thalidomide's producer, Chemie Gruenenthal of Germany, is watching the Israeli experiments closely to see if the controversial drug might yet have a useful application...
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