Capsules

P: A blot was removed from the 1956 Salk vaccine record. The death of James Thomson, 15, of Mount Vernon, Wash., had officially been reported as resulting from polio, although he had three shots of Salk vaccine (TIME, Dec. 24). More detailed studies of the boy's tissues now show that he died of acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, a rare disease of the brain and spinal cord, easily confused with polio. There remains only one 1956 case of a child's death attributed to polio despite triple vaccination, and this is no longer provable.

P: Eight infectious diseases reported to the Communicable Disease Center declined in 1956, while six became more frequent, the U.S. Public Health Service reported. Down were polio, with 15,400 cases (a 47% drop below 1955's total of 29,270), brucellosis, diphtheria, hepatitis, malaria, meningococcal infections, typhus and rabies in animals. There were increases in typhoid, anthrax, encephalitis, measles, rabies in man, and psittacosis (up 82%, from 278 cases to 508, almost entirely among parakeet lovers).

P: One reason why U.S. women outlive men by an average of four years is "our curious cult of manliness," wrote Dr. Lemuel C. McGee, medical director of the Hercules Powder Co., in Today's Health. "The practice of manliness has become a curse--a lethal curse. The American male has been indoctrinated with the philosophy that he must live, work and play at a dizzy pace . . . Whether such behavior is necessary or desirable is rarely considered. The man can take it! He must show others that he can take it and disregard any limitations of his mind or body."

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