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> The headline seemed out of place in the usually staid Journal of the American Medical Association. It read: "The Pain in the Arse." The article that followed was not an editorial about an annoying individual or situation, but a report by Drs. Roy Swartout and Edward Compere of El Monte, Calif, about a real illness, ischiogluteal bursitis. The ailment results when friction causes inflammation of the bursae, or small, fluid-filled sacs, in places where tendons pass over the ischia, or hipbones. Many victims feel sharp, shooting pains in the legs and a relentless, dominating ache in one or both buttocks. The doctors, who became interested in the condition when it developed in Swartout, prescribe painkillers and bed rest for those afflicted with derriere discomfort. They also urge that treatment be initiated promptly; most victims of ischiogluteal bursitis, they note, have "the bedraggled appearance of those who cannot sleep."

> Marijuana acts, at least in part, by temporarily depressing the nervous system--apparently without serious effect. But a team of researchers from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons reports in Science that the drug can also depress the immune system, which helps protect the body against disease organisms. The team bases its report on a study of 51 young men and women who used marijuana regularly. Taking T-lymphocytes, or immunologically active white blood cells, from the pot smokers and from 81 healthy, nonsmoking volunteers, the doctors mixed the cells in test tubes with substances known to elicit immune responses. Cells from both groups responded to the foreign substances by multiplying, but those taken from the marijuana users reproduced 40% less than those from controls, a result suggesting that regular marijuana users may be more susceptible to disease.

> Doctors have long suspected that industrial exposure to vinyl chloride, a plastic substance, is dangerous. Their suspicions were further aroused recently when abnormalities were discovered in the livers of a number of workers in a B.F. Goodrich Co. chemical plant in Louisville, Ky., and it was found that four of the men had a malignancy called angiosarcoma of the liver. Last week the cancer was discovered in two more of the employees and confirmed as a contributing cause of death in an employee of a West Virginia plant. Although the action comes too late to save the workers who have already contracted the disease (six have died of it), the Kentucky Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board has taken steps to reduce the risk to other workers by lowering allowable levels of exposure to vinyl chloride in the plant.

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