54

mately 9:58 in the morning and end at
10:59 (EWT); in New Orleans and
Baton Rouge, La., 8:51 to 9:34 (CWT);
in Austin, Texas, 8:37 to 9:36 (CWT);

MEDICINE

Science News Lerrer for January 22, 1944

in Santa Fe., N. M., the sun rises par-
tially eclipsed, the eclipse ending at
8:26, Mountain War Time.

Science News Letter, January 22, 1944

Sulfa Drugs Save Sailors

Instead of having makeshift appendectomies per-
formed on board ship, surgeons advise special hold-over
treatment until professional aid is available.

> A NEW ROLE for the sulfa drugs,
that of saving sailors from appendicitis
death or the hazards of makeshift op-
erations for appendicitis, appears in a
report by two U. S. Navy medical offi-
cers, Comdr. William L. Berkley and
Lieut. Comdr. Harry C. Watkins. (U. S.
Naval Medical Bulletin, January)

The public may be thrilled by stories
of enlisted personnel performing appen-
dectomies on shipmates at sea when no
medical aid is available. Physicians and
surgeons both in and out of the Navy,
however, deplore such action.

“We believe more lives will be lost
through surgery performed by unquali-
fied persons than would be lost through
a policy of delay of surgery, using prop-
er treatment during the delay period,”
Lieut. Comdr. F. Glenn Irwin and Lieut.
Comdr. Gaines L. Coates, declare in an-
other report on appendicitis in the same
issue of the Naval Medical Bulletin,

Even when.a medical officer is aboard
the vessel to perform the operation, the
patient’s welfare may be jeopardized by
poor or deficient equipment, unfavorable
weather conditions, unskilled assistants
to the surgeon, and postoperative haz-
ards due to enemy action, it is pointed
out.

The postoperative complications seen
in base hospitals as a result of appendec-
tomies done at sea show how hazardous
the ordinarily simple appendicitis oper-
ation may be under unfavorable condi-
tions.

Sulfa drugs may help, Commander
Berkley and Commander Watkins be-
lieve, by bringing the patient safely
through the delay period until he can
have his operation under good condi-
tions. They give credit to sulfa drug

report 400 consecutive operations without

a single death in patients admitted to
their hospital from shore stations and

ships.

Science News Letter, January 22, 1944

MEDICINE-PHYSIOLOGY

“Motor Unfitness’’ Found
Prevalent in College Men

> AN. “APPALLING”. number. of
young men entering college suffer from
“motor unfitness,” tests at the Uni-
versity of Illinois show. The tests and
their results are reported by Dr. Thomas
K. Cureton, of the University’s School

 

of Physical Education, in the Journal,
American Medical Association.

Motor fitness, he says, means “capacity
to run, jump, dodge, fall, climb, swim,
ride, lift and carry loads and endure
long hours of continuous work.” Vitally
necessary to the soldier, motor fitness
is also needed by civilians for their
safety and health, Dr. Cureton points
out.
Many people, he says, slip on rugs,
in the shower or pool or when dismount-
ing from moving vehicles and suffer
serious accidents because they lack kines-
thetic sense and cannot tell when they

are off balance and how to recover

quickly.

Protected soft lives, dependence on
motor vehicles, inefficient physical edu-
cation, and lack of hard physical work
are blamed by Dr. Cureton for the
large number of men who enter -col-
lege with motor unfitness.

Tests developed at the University of
Illinois to rate students on motor fitness
include ability to balance on one foot
or toe for 10 seconds; ability to do 20
leg lifts and 20 situps in succession;
ability to lift and set down once a per-
son one’s own weight; ability to do a
standing broad jump of seven feet;

CUT BY EROSION—Accelerated wearing away leaves deep gullies such as
this one which dwarfs the man at the right. Some of these gullies are as much
as 800 feet deep. This photograph, taken in Kansu, China, was made by Dr.
W. C. Lowdermilk, as were the beautiful pictures of China shown on these

pages and of the yak on the cover of this SCIENCE NEWS LETTER.

treatment for just this in a small number
of cases in which they tried it.

Sulfa drugs are also listed as part of
the medical treatment advised by Com-
mander Irwin and Commander Coates
when operation must be delayed. They