Chinese Ears

BOARDS & BUREAUS

Employes of the Bureau of Customs pondered a problem last week that had never confronted them before. It had to do with Chinese ears. Was it legal to import them from China? Were they dutiable? How should they be shipped? If the ears that were troubling the Bureau were to be transported with the customary Chinese between each pair, the problem might have been passed on to the Immigration Service. As it was, the ears were to be imported unattached. After thumbing many documents and consulting the Public Health Service and the Post Office Department, the Customs Bureau decided that Chinese ears, in fact any unattached human ears, might be imported free of duty in refrigerated packages, but that they might not be sent through the mails.

The Chinese ear question was put to the Customs Bureau by Eli Lilly & Co., which stated that it had arranged to buy in China three pairs of ears needed in its Indianapolis laboratories in connection with some experiments in plastic surgery by Shanghai-born Dr. Ko Kuei Chen, Lilly's famed director of pharmacological research. When newshawks sought out Lilly's Dr. Chen, all he would say was that he was working on a hunch "which may or may not prove successful."

Said the New York Academy of Medicine's Dr. lago Galdston: "There is no reason to import ears from another country. There are enough ears here now and, aside from that, all ears are alike whether American or Chinese."

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