Wind on the Hill

Emphysema is a Greek word for inflation, but it got attention on Capitol Hill last week for physical rather than fiscal reasons. As now used in medicine, it describes a disabling disease in which the lungs fail to empty properly and remain uselessly overinflated. The result is a condition long familiar in horses, and known as "heaves" or "broken wind."

Alabama's Representative Kenneth A. Roberts drew a quick laugh when he told the House: "There will, no doubt, be some who say that a Congressman couldn't possibly have emphysema since he's so long-winded anyway." Then he added: "Seriously, Mr. Speaker, I invite you and my colleagues to visit the emphysema mobile unit."

Breathe Deeply. The emphysema (pronounced em-fih-see-muh) mobile unit consisted of a truck parked outside the House with an Army tent set up beside it. Mr. Speaker--Massachusetts' John McCormack--was first in line when the unit opened. Within the week, more than 300 Senators and Representatives followed him.

Each of the legislators was instructed to inhale deeply, then to exhale as hard as he could through a tube attached to the bellows of a spirometer. The motion of the bellows made an electronic dot on the screen of a nearby oscilloscope. A persistent lung disorder usually shows up as a droop in the loop made by the dot as it moves downward across the screen during exhalation. Besides the blow-out test, each Congressman had a chest X ray and filled out a short questionnaire: "Are you ever troubled by shortness of breath? Do you have more than two colds a year?"

Blow Hot. At Birmingham's Alabama Medical Center, where the mobile unit was devised by Lung Specialist Dr.

Ben Branscomb, 10,000 volunteers have already taken the emphysema test, and thousands more will do so before the center's five-year research project is finished. One major question to be answered: How prevalent is emphysema? Once it was considered uncommon.

Now, Dr. Branscomb reports, 10% to 15% of men over 40 have emphysema.

Early test results at week's end showed that 10% to 15% of the Congressmen had some breathing impairment. It would take time to find out how many of them had hitherto unsuspected emphysema. In any case, officials of the Alabama Tuberculosis Association and its affiliates felt sure that as a result of the demonstration, Congressmen would be more likely to blow hot than cold on appropriations for lung-disease research.

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