Apple a Day

One way to find out whether a stitch in time really saves nine would be to have a tailor experiment with garments in various stages of disrepair. One way to find out whether an apple a day really keeps the doctor away would be to try it on a number of people for a number of days. Last week it was reported from Memphis that Dr. Lathan Augustus Crandall Jr., head of the University of Tennessee's physiology department, was about to do just that.

Subjects for the experiment will be 200 orphans in institutions, aged five to twelve. They will be divided into two groups of 100 each. One group will be apple-fed; the other will eat no apples. After a year of this treatment Dr. Crandall should be able to determine whether the apple-fed children are measurably healthier than the others. Dr. Crandall is not primarily interested in testing the veracity of proverbs, but in the general effect of apples on health. While he is at it he will try to learn--using not human subjects but rats--whether apples give protection against lead poisoning, as some physiologists believe.

The experiment was suggested by the National Apple Institute. Dr. Crandall pointed out last week that the Institute had not yet made an appropriation for the experiment, declared that, until it did so, publicity was "premature." But at week's end it seemed certain that the Institute would cough up the necessary cash, and no doubt the necessary apples too.

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