Word: useless
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Surgery is practically useless in controlling angina pectoris, declared Dr. Marvin. A few years ago surgeons, without knowing precisely why, cut certain nerves near the neck, which carry messages to and from the heart. All that this did was to keep the patient from being aware of the agonizing pain and in some instances prevent spasms from contracting the coronary arteries. But such operations did not attack the underlying causes of the spasms or pain. Besides, many patients died during the operations. So now few surgeons perform them...
Some surgeons inject alcohol into those nerves. The alcohol paralyzes the nerves and makes them as useless as though they were severed. But few surgeons are adept at hitting the quarter of a square inch under the collar bone for which they must aim their hypodermic needles. Dr. Marvin thinks little of the procedure, but said it is the only sensible thing surgery has done for angina pectoris or coronary disease...
Philip Johnson, whose province is interior decoration, described the "functional modern approach" of his art, which is now governed almost despotically by the principle of utility. That principle needed to be evoked after the clutteration of the mid-Victorian home. We shall never experience the dubious joy of accumulating useless and ornamental junk. In fact, Miss Catherine Bauer, whose article deals with houses and cities, has no doubts about the passing of the self-contained, isolated home, man's castle, and she is all for communal housing. To the romantic the apartment house is of course far from desirable...
...Useless to the American two-party system must be judged any political party unable to furnish a consistent critical opposition. By its recent action in relation to the Public Works Relief Bill, the Republican Party has definitely put itself into that category. The opposition of Republican Senators to the administration in the recent "prevailing wage" amendment vote was no more than blind opposition. Their vote was based on the reasoning that President Roosevelt wants the Relief Bill passed without the amendment, that Roosevelt is a Democrat, that, therefore, he must be opposed...
...inventor of the electrical pacemaker (TIME, Dec. 19, 1932), Manhattan's ambitious Dr. Albert Solomon Hyman, freshened up that kind of news by attaching thereto a schedule of Death. If the brain and central nervous system are deprived of refreshing blood for eight to twelve minutes, it is useless to try revival, said Dr. Hyman, because, even if the individual's heart is restarted, he will be a hopelessly crippled idiot...