MEDICINE AND SURGERY 1929

by MORRIS FISHBEIN, M.D.
Editor, Journal American Medical Association
Popular Science Monthly – January 1930

THE following subjects have been of exceeding interest during the year just completed.

The concentrated extract of vitamin D made by irradiating ergosterol and now prescribed and sold as viosterol is of the greatest importance as a preventive and cure of rickets, and for all other vitamin D effects in the body. Ultra-violet rays continue to be of interest, particularly a new quartz mercury vapor bulb developed by the General Electric Company. This gives only the intensity of sunlight and may therefore be used as a home light.

The use of toxic gases in industry aroused the consternation of the public when deaths were found to be due to methyl chloride leaking from certain types of home refrigerators. Means were developed for adding an odorous gas to methyl chloride so that the householder might realize its presence.

Experimentation with cancer in hundreds of laboratories has yielded results of interest, but it is still safe to say that no specific method for the prevention and treatment of cancer has been discovered. The speed of modern life is reflecting itself in a decrease of expectancy of life after forty years of age.

The liver is found to be a vast storehouse of remedies, most conspicuous at this time being the extract used for the specific control of pernicious anemia. Workers in the field of genetics have discovered the specific hormones to control the determination of sex and maturity. Control of the metabolic rate of the egg permits the development of male or female as the experimenter may desire. A skin test for pregnancy is being perfected.

An electrical device for sealing blood vessels permits safer and more rapid operations on the brain. A new method of staining the germ of tuberculosis received a medal of award because it permits the more certain diagnosis of this disease.

The big problem of modern medicine is to furnish scientific medical diagnosis and treatment to all people at a price they can pay.

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