Capsules

-- "It's a whole 'nother smoke," claims the commercial for one of the "little cigars." The U.S. Public Health Service and the Federal Trade Commission disagree with that claim, at least as it bears on the health hazards of the small, tobacco-wrapped smokes that usually come in packs of 20. Because they can be easily inhaled in the same manner as cigarettes and have roughly the same amounts of nicotine and tars, they can be just as dangerous, the Government agencies contend. Therefore the FTC recommended last week that little cigars be treated like cigarettes under the law. If Congress agrees, television and radio advertising for the little cigars would be banned, and manufacturers would have to print a health-hazard warning on each package.

> Each year almost 100,000 U.S. hospital patients die of pulmonary embolisms--blood clots that generally form in the leg veins and travel to points where they block arteries leading to the lungs. Many of these deaths probably could be prevented. The patients may be immobilized because of minor surgery or for other reasons. That lack of movement is the villain; blood that is pooled and stagnating in the legs tends to clot. It has been known for years that thigh-length elastic stockings aid in controlling clot formation. Now, in the Archives of Surgery, a research team at the Medical College of Pennsylvania and at the Philadelphia Veterans Administration Hospital provides confirmation. The investigators used elaborate Doppler ultrasound instruments to measure the rate of blood flow in the legs of volunteers, with and without stockings. They found that a well-fitted stocking, tight at the ankle, not too snug at the thigh, markedly increases the movement of blood, thus reducing the risk of clotting--and of embolisms.

-- As Joe Namath and other athletes have painfully learned, the human knee was not designed by nature to withstand a twisting action (torque) when the leg is held rigid by a cleated shoe planted firmly in soft ground. To orthopedists nothing is more predictable than this "football knee." Houston's Dr. Bruce Cameron reasoned that while players must have cleats to ensure good traction, they need to be released from the fixed stance when they are hit by a block or tackled. So he designed shoes with a cleat plate that rotates in the middle of the sole. The player can pivot on the plate while the cleats remain implanted in the sod. Result: many fewer torn ligaments. Trade named Swivler by Wolverine Products, the shoes come in styles for football, soccer, rugby, lacrosse and baseball.

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