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50 Years Ago
Lady scientist pins
MS on microbe
PHILADELPHIA — Multiple sclerosis' days as a debilitating
affliction may be numbered hinted St Luke's Hospital's
chief researcher Rose Ichelson at a press conference.
Ms Ichelson claims that she's proven the disease is
caused by a micro-organism called spirochaeta myelophtora
and that she's devised a simple MS skin test. The Multiple
Sclerosis Society was cautiously optimistic, saying
it "would be very pleased to have any report validated
as to the cause of this disease. If Miss Ichelson's
report is substantiated by other workers a great stride
will have been made." Source: New York Times,
8 June, 1957
94
Years Ago
Cars: not healthy as a horse
LONDON — As the automobile takes up an ever greater
share of the twisting roads of London, the editors of
The Lancet warn that we shouldn't presume that
this is all progress. They write that poisons like carbonic
acid gas, hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide unleashed
into the city's famous brume by motorcars are imperilling
the health of Londoners. The authors boast that their
publication foresaw this problem years earlier when
the car was still a novelty. At that time, the conventional
wisdom held that cars would represent an improvement
for urban health compared to the horses which had paved
the streets with dung for centuries. Source: The
Lancet, 20 July, 1913
127
Years Ago
Medics learn from poison
arrows
GEORGETOWN, GUYANA — A poison variously called
curare, ourari, or woodrali is the focus of much scientific
head-scratching of late. The substance is used by South
American Indians to add a poisonous tip to their arrows.
A certain Dr Schomburgk recently went on an expedition
in British Guyana to watch the preparation of the poison.
He was amazed at the great distances the tribesmen would
go to procure the rare plant — which he's dubbed
Strychnos toxifera — used to make the poison.
He's also investigated how the poison works and he concluded
that it paralyses breathing and motion without any adverse
effect on blood or tissues. Other researchers, like
Drs Hammond and Weir-Mitchell of the US, are putting
curare under their microscopes. These two doctors examined
some poison samples and concluded that its active ingredients
were all derived from plants — quelling the long-held
notion that snake venom was added to the substance Source:
New York Times, 6 January, 1878
An ancient EKG machine
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