Search

The director of the Lincoln University (Mo.) School of Journalism—the only Negro institution offering a full professional curriculum—describes a research project which he has been guiding under sponsorship of the American Council of Learned Societies.

New mechanical devices for newspaper production continued to be top news during 1948, although the Florida publisher using the famed “cold type” process issued a sober warning against over-optimism. The union struggle against the Taft-Hartley law which motivated the primary interest in printerless production continued as well. The ban of the magazine the Nation from New York City public school lists became the hot-weather cause célébre of early autumn. In the field of radio, television was at last recognized as a practical competitive factor in communications and advertising.—W. F. S.

Activity on issues between the federal government and the press continued during the third quarter of 1955. However no single major flare-up resulted although there were several vital questions opened up for debate. The Eisenhower administration continued to issue “dry-up” orders on information in several new areas including firms holding defense equipment orders. At least two congressional committees entered the field of investigation of press v. government relations. Newspaper organizations heard several discussions and disquiet over the situation was evident at a number of conventions although no outright, official action was taken.In the radio and television field great interest in the theoretical merits and drawbacks of “pay” television programs continued. The status of the FCC as a result of the Lamb case also was being watched.

THIS REPORT presents the results of the treatment of two series of infants and children with tuberculous meningitis. The first, consisting of 19 patients, was treated from May, 1947, to February, 1952, with use of a regimen of intramuscular and intrathecal streptomycin, plus oral paraaminosalicylic acid and/or thiazolsulfone (Promizole). The current series of six patients has been treated since May, 1952, with the use of a regimen of intramuscular streptomycin and oral paraaminosalicylic acid and isoniazid, without intrathecal streptomycin. Serum and cerebrospinal fluid isoniazid levels and other laboratory studies are included for the first three patients of the second series and for a fourth patient with only miliary tuberculosis, who served as a control.Success in the treatment of tuberculous meningitis has been attained by various regimens. Lincoln and co-workers,1 in 1948, reported one of the most favorable early series, with six surviving out of seven patients, using intramuscular

The formation of a special newspaper exchange for news on crime, particularly gambling, as a means of coping with a story which had long since outgrown local coverage facilities, was the most significant development of recent months. Many observers were urging newspapers to consider extending the exchange idea to handle other types of news, as a means of supplementing the wire services and syndicates. In the field of press law, the historic anti-trust suit against an Ohio newspaper on charges of conspiring to effect an advertising monopoly was turned over to the court, after testimony and arguments on both sides, with a decision expected sometime within the year. In radio, the future of television, especially color TV, continued to be the chief topic of speculation and debate.—W. F. S.

Ethical problems played a greater prominence in newspaper activities during the spring and early summer of 1949 than had been the case for many years. The question of newsmen on state payrolls, in Florida, Illinois and New York, caused the American Society of Newspaper Editors to make an official investigation. The question of medical society advertising against “socialized medicine” touched off charges of bribery and collusion in California. Overseas the British Royal Commission of Inquiry completed its study of the press and rendered a much milder verdict than had generally been expected. In both countries, however, the press was receiving increasing warnings from laymen and from its own practitioners to be more fully conscious of its public service responsibilities.–W. F. S.

THE NITROGEN mustards were introduced into medical practice in 1946 for the palliative treatment of the lymphomas, leukemias and other types of neoplastic disease.1 The most commonly administered nitrogen mustard is methyl-bis (2-chloroethyl) amine hydrochloride (HN2), and, since 1946, much experience has been gained from its use throughout the world.2 This nitrogen mustard has found a useful place as a temporary palliative agent in the management of certain types and stages of neoplastic disease. It must be injected intravenously, and it frequently produces severe nausea and vomiting; consequently, its administration, in most cases, has been regarded as a hospital procedure. Extravasation of the injected solution will produce a prolonged and painful local reaction, and, in patients receiving repeated courses of treatment, venous thromboses and difficulty in finding suitable veins for injection may occur. The dosage must be carefully controlled, since an excessive dose will produce serious, prolonged

A verdict of guilty was returned against the Kansas City Star and its advertising director after a trial on an indictment charging violation of anti-trust laws in relations with advertisers. Publisher Roy Roberts was dropped from the suit shortly before the start of the trial hearings. Second Jelke trial was held in New York with press representatives in attendance during the quarter. Also in the field of courts and the press, Walter Winchell and the Hearst interests publicly apologized to the N. Y. Post for Communist-sympathy remarks as part of settlement of a million dollar libel suit.In the management field, the Brooklyn Eagle announced suspension of the newspaper after 47 days of a strike by Newspaper Guild. Efforts to find a new publisher were being made at the end of the period. The Toronto Globe-Mail was sold to a Montreal industrialist as part of an estate settlement but was announced as continuing under the same editor and policies.

Factors in the growth of a vigorous minority press are analyzed by the dean of the School of Journalism at Lincoln University, who predicts that Negro newspapers will continue in the United States for a long time to come. This article is based upon a chapter in Dr. Pride's Ph.D. dissertation at Northwestern.

Threats to freedom of the press on the international scene constituted one of the most significant developments in the first quarter of 1951. In Argentina, the Peron government succeeded in closing down La Prensa, famed daily of Buenos Aires and one of the government's most virulent critics, in an action reminiscent of the Nazi appropriation of Frankfurter Zeitung two decades ago. In the United Nations, American and other western delegates criticized the proposed draft convention on freedom of information as a subtle, serious threat to actual freedom by reason of its clauses on security and restraint upon publications tending to offend foreign powers… . On the domestic scene, television occupied the spotlight; color processes were involved in a court battle, the televising of the New York hearings of the Senate crime investigation produced what social scientists believed was an unprecedented impact upon the public, and the FCC plans to distribute almost 2,000 “very high frequency” and “ultra high frequency” franchises made the prospect of local video very much greater.—W. F. S.

Presidential political campaigning inevitably made itself felt in the literature of journalism during the third quarter both in the field of pure technique and in the traditional controversy over the balance of newspaper support given to the major parties.The impact of national television coverage of the political conventions inspired many estimates of the effect of this innovation on both the public and on the political parties themselves, the diversity of theories being the outstanding noticeable result. In addition the pure mechanics of television coverage at press conferences and other small gatherings produced a clash with representatives of older news media. This fight gives every evidence of becoming a long-standing problem.As the campaign moved into the final major stage Democratic candidate Stevenson opened an old debate by asserting that the United States “has a one-party press in a two-party country.” The inevitable rejoinders followed with the September Editor& Publisherpoll indicating that 75% of the daily press which had taken its stand had endorsed Eisenhower. With national attention focused forward toward the final month of campaigning there were few other developments of major importance on the newspaper horizon.

Economic pressures constituted an ever greater threat to domestic and world press freedom in mid-1951. This was dramatized by the suspension of the St. Louis Star-Times and the transition of that community into the growing column of non-competitive newspaper territories. Rising labor and newsprint costs were cited as a basic cause of the suspension. Newsprint, already at all-time high prices, was the subject of several congressional and administrative discussions—not only in the interest of American newspapers but of publications throughout the free world which were faced with the imminent prospect of starving for paper. … Political attacks on press freedom continued abroad with passage of a highly restrictive statute in India, while in the United States a partisan effort to “investigate” certain Florida dailies was eventually snuffed out.—W. F. S.

The increasing international tension in the last quarter of the year put additional emphasis on publicity and propaganda in the battle for men's minds. The Voice of America was considerably strengthened, with promises of still more support to come. In domestic radio, the Columbia Broadcasting System's method of color television was approved by the FCC, only to precipitate a louder debate and a succession of court actions… . In the field of advertising, Dr. George Gallup announced a new evaluation technique which some thought might be as revolutionary as his readership principles have been in the past twenty years… . In the field of news writing and press responsibility several writers were still concerned with what they considered to be a qualitative weakening of journalistic standards. These appeared to be the leading professional problems as the second half of the twentieth century began.—W. F. S.

TWO CHILDREN in the same family with congenital ichthyosiform erythroderma have recently been available for detailed study. This condition is not seen often, and little information on the subject has been published in the current medical literature. In addition, one patient had what is thought to be the first recorded occurrence of Kaposi's varicelliform eruption as a complication of this disease, and his case is one of the few on record with complete autopsy findings.Congenital ichthyosiform erythroderma was described by Brocq1 in 1902, although it had been recognized as a clinical entity by Vidal2 in 1882. However, according to Bruhns,3 the first case was reported by Sangster in 1895. Important reviews of the literature were made by MacKee and Rosen4 in 1917 and by Weiss and Tobias5 in 1925. Laymon and Murphy6 in 1948 presented a detailed report of the clinical features, histological

Political and economic threats to press freedom constituted the most significant development in the third quarter of 1951. The farcical Czech conviction of AP Correspondent William Oatis stirred official Washington action in retaliation but by the end of the quarter had not resulted in Oatis’ release. In the United States a Louisiana newspaper's efforts to expose gambling and official laxness in prosecuting it resulted in a brazen indictment of the journalists for “defaming” the officials. Amid these threats to free expression, however, a committee of Washington newsmen set an example of adherence to the principle of freedom by turning down an editors’ suggestion that Tass representatives be barred from the press galleries as spies. … On the economic side, the International Typographical Union sought to counter the trend toward newspaper monopolies by starting three competing dailies. However, the threat of still higher newsprint prices was causing many dailies to go up to 10 cents a copy and the hunt for cheap and plentiful substitute raw materials for newsprint production continued.—W. F. S.

Flush-mounted hot-film sensors were used to study local turbulence-induced fluctuations in the rate of heat transfer in pipe flow of water for a Reynolds number range of 11,000 to 170,000. Determinations were made of power spectral density, characteristic frequency (obtained from the rate at which the signal crossed its zero level), amplitude density, and intensity of the heat-transfer fluctuations. Studies of the relationship between the heat-transfer fluctuations in the vicinity of the wall indicated that a significant correlation existed which systematically decreased as the anemometer was moved from moderate distances upstream to moderate distances downstream of the wall sensor. Evidences of a periodic component were observed in the autocorrelation curves of velocity fluctuations in the vicinity of the wall for a Reynolds number of 52,000. The period determined was of the same order of magnitude as that predicted by Einstein and Li [10]2 and Black [11] sublayer flow models.

The important and difficult appraisal of the role of sympathectomy in the treatment of hypertension and hypertensive heart disease requires all the follow-up information that is available. There has been much discussion of the status of this therapy in the past with ardent advocates and equally ardent opponents. Time and continued interest in constant improvement both of the selection of cases and of the technics will eventually give the answers. Meanwhile we may hope that some effective treatment less severe and radical than either sympathectomy or rigid diets may be introduced to control hypertension or, still better, to prevent it.During the past year there was published a review of the effect of sympathectomy on the blood pressure in hypertension in the case of 292 patients on the public wards of the Massachusetts General Hospital.1 Although the lumbodorsal technic was used on a considerable majority of these patients the

Suspension of publication of the major New York City dailies for a period of 11 days in early December because of an engravers strike resulted in controversy in several categories of journalism literature. Besides obvious interest in the results of the strike in the areas of labor relations and economics, debate developed over the action of related unions in making the strike mandatory by honoring the picket lines of the engravers union and the decision of the New York Herald Tribune in refraining from publishing although not a direct party to the strike action.Relations between the working press and the Eisenhower administration developed enough friction on at least two points to produce noteworthy articles of comment and criticism. Information “leaks” to favored correspondents were charged at a presidential press conference and defended as justified under some circumstances by the President. Even more partisan bickering developed as a result of Attorney-General Herbert Brownell's revelation about the handling of suspected security risks in the Truman administration. After a stormy presidential press conference at which some reporters failed to obtain all requested information on the affair, a New York Times poll of correspondents showed that a majority felt the administration, but not the President, was succumbing to “McCarthyism.” Direct radio transcriptions of some presidential conferences were sanctioned and an “unofficial transcription” for newsmen was instituted during this quarter.

The release of Associated Press correspondent William Oatis from a Czech prison was the most spectacular journalistic event of April, May and June 1953. The settlement of this two-year-old newspaper issue between the western world and the Communist bloc of nations coincided with the so-called “Peace Offensive” in general events of the world.The New Orleans Times-Picayune unit advertising rate case, another cause celebre of the journalistic world, also was settled during the quarter. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the newspaper but without clearly indicating whether the general practice of unit rate setting would stand in the eyes of the judges for other press units.The shelving of all major efforts to investigate the “one-party press” charges of the 1952 election was announced by several professional bodies, mostly on the grounds that no adequate criteria existed for judging the performance of newspapers in the campaign. Fast superseding the “one-party” controversy in the area of newspapers and politics was the James Wechsler-Joseph McCarthy clash. At the end of the period it was under review by a committee of the American Society of Newspaper Editors to determine whether press freedom was involved in the senator's official grilling of the New York Post editor in a Senate sub-committee.

Journalism ethics were debated sharply in relationship to several widely varying incidents which erupted at various points in the nation during April, May and June. General Motors Corporation withdrew advertising from the Wall Street Journal in apparent retribution for an article which revealed coming automobile styling on GM automobiles. This method of retaliation for an alleged breach of confidence was attacked by many editors. This incident followed alleged pressure by big automobile companies to induce newspapers to turn-down classified advertisements for new cars from all but company-authorized dealers.In New England, a score of news men were revealed to have accepted extra pay from race track corporations and from state governmental units. While at least two wire service employees were separated from their news jobs as a result, some newspapers defended the right of their employees to such outside remuneration.A New York appeals court reversed a lower court decision in the Jelke case because newspapermen were kept from the courtroom during a portion of the trial. A sensational libel suit brought by writer Quentin Reynolds against columnist Westbrook Pegler was notable because most newspapers ignored or played-down this seeming newspaper “natural.”In simple communication activity, the second quarter will be remembered for the McCarthy-Army hearings in Washington. Issues arising from this hearing may arise for years but the immediate effect in periodical articles was not especially noteworthy.

Frank N. Allan, MD, has written in support of a bill (S. 2633, 93rd Congress), introduced by Sen Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin which, if enacted, would prohibit the use of trademarked names for prescription drug products. In our opinion this proposal, in attempting to avert purely hypothetical dangers, poses some real and greater ones. It promises no consumer benefits sufficient to offset its adverse effects—the annoyance to physicians and the discouragement to manufacturers willing to underwrite increasingly expensive and risky research and development, and those who may wish to exceed minimal standards of quality and not merely meet them.First of all, where is there evidence of a real and serious problem? Are physicians really ignorant as to the active ingredients of the 40 to 50 drugs commonly used by the typical practitioner? We doubt it. Journal articles invariably refer to drugs by generic names, and by law, every advertisement

The sulfhydryl content of serum proteins has been quantitatively determined through an adaptation of an amperometric titration. Among normal adults, the values noted, expressed as milligrams of cysteine, were uniform, reproducible and averaged 6.5±0.2 mg per 100 ml serum or 5.5±0.3 mg per gram serum nitrogen. The albumin component of serum contained 80% of the total sulfhydryl. The addition of desoxyribonucleic acid, creatine or formaldehyde did not change the sulfhydryl content of the serum. The addition of an SH reagent such as para-chloro-mercuri-benzoate abolished all reactant groups measured with this method.Sera obtained from patients with various diseases showed a significant reduction in the sulfhydryl available for this titration. This quantitative reduction in sulfhydryl was still evident when corrected for differences in the albumin and globulin components and thus represented a qualitative change in the serum proteins. At the present time, the alteration in the sulfhydryl content of serum or its components is not characteristic enough to permit specific differentiation among the neoplastic, metabolic, or infectious diseases. The possible application of serial serum sulfhydryl determinations in animals and patients may be of value as an objective indicator of response and for study of the mechanism of action of chemotherapeutic and other agents.

Having had negative Roentgen findings in several patients in my clinic with evident stricture of the esophagus, as demonstrated by sounding, and knowing the importance of an early diagnosis in such conditions, I shall report a method that will not only give a clear outline of the encroachment in malignant strictures, but also be a readily applied aid in the treatment of benign strictures. In the cases which I here report, the method as outlined by Bassler of blocking the cardia with a rubber bag was impossible because the rubber necessary for proper inflation was too thick to be passed through the strictures in spite of repeated attempts. The wheat breakfast-food-bismuth subcarbonate mixture also gave negative results (Fig. 1). The rubber-bag method is a good one, but causes pain. The bismuth mixture as suggested by Steward will outline the proximal part of the esophagus, but give little idea of the