Retch and Stay Sober

If a drunkard can be made to vomit every time he takes a drink, he has a better than even chance of curing himself -at least for a long time -of drunkenness. This nauseous conclusion was published in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences last week, by Drs. Walter Lyle Voegtlin, Frederick Lemere, and colleagues of Seattle's Shadel Sanitarium, who carried out conditioning experiments with 827 alcoholics during the last five years.

An alcoholic taking the "conditioned reflex therapy" is first given an injection of emetine, which is, unbeknownst to him, a powerful regurgitant. The conditioning takes place in a small, drab clinic furnished with a kind of throne for the patient and a number of large white enamel pans. On a throne-side table are "all conceivable types of liquor."

The patient sits down with a pan on his knees and is glumly offered a drink. Almost as soon as he lifts the glass to his lips, the emetine works, and he starts to hours retch, of sometimes uninterrupted suffering nausea. "six . . to ." eight This bitter experience is repeated from two to ten times.

Result: 532 (58.6%) of the patients have remained abstinent for at least six months; of 142 whose behavior has been watched for more than four years, 44.7% have remained teetotalers. Drs. Voegtlin and Lemere say patients should return occasionally for reconditioning.

Cartels & Malaria

The story of how two cartels, one Dutch, the other German, tied up the world's production of malaria drugs was aired in Washington last week, as Sterling Products announced that patents for producing a quinine substitute, once German-owned, would be released to U.S. drug firms.

Malaria, most widespread and consuming of all human diseases, saps the strength of some 800,000,000 people throughout the world. Although there is no safe drug that directly kills malaria parasites (carried by the Anopheles mosquito), the chills & fever and other symptoms can be controlled by dosing with quinine, made from the bitter bark of the cinchona tree.

By 1865, the Dutch successfully started planting cinchona trees in Java from one pound of South American seed. In recent years, after South American forests were plundered, the Dutch Kina Bureau controlled 95% of the world's quinine supply (33,000,000 oz.), kept the price pegged at an exorbitant 67-c- an oz. With Java now fallen to the Japanese, the supply of quinine to the U.S. (which has about 3,000,000 cases of malaria in the Southern States) has been cut off. So have all shipments to Russia, India and South America.

The Treasury Department has stored up a two years' supply for the Western Hemisphere, but this stockpile may be considerably depleted by shipments to troops stationed in the tropics (malaria was a tremendous problem in Bataan--see p. 20).

To develop new South American cinchona trees would take at least seven years. The world shortage of quinine would be less serious if the U.S. were able to produce large amounts of the synthetic drug atabrine, a coal-tar substitute for quinine, developed ten years ago. Almost as effective as quinine, atabrine is less suitable for large-scale use, for it is more toxic, should be given under a physician's supervision.

But, so far, the United Nations have only enough atabrine available for several million cases of malaria. Sole producer of atabrine has been Winthrop Chemical Co., owned by Sterling Products, Inc. and General Aniline & Film Corp. This year the U.S. Treasury Department seized Aniline's stock on the grounds that the company was controlled by the great, hydra-headed German chemical trust, I. G. Farben, the same German chemical trust which holds the buna synthetic-rubber patents used by Standard Oil (TIME, April 6).

Last fall Sterling prudently broke all contracts with I. G. Farben for selling drugs. But Winthrop showed no disposition to license other U.S. manufacturers to make atabrine.

Last fortnight, with Thurman Arnold hot on its trail, Sterling announced that Winthrop would license Merck & Co. (which also had a tight grasp on the quinine market), thus allow enough atabrine to be made for 26,500,000 cases a year.

At week's end, the President asked Congress to authorize a supplemental appropriation of $5,520,000 for the Federal Security Agency -of which $5.000,000 would be used "to take precautions against malaria."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.