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ONLY a small proportion of Negroes with the sickle cell trait have the active form of the disease.1In 1929 Levy2found that of 213 Negroes admitted in succession to the New Rochelle Hospital, 12, or 5.8 per cent, had "sickling." Murphy and Shapiro3recorded its incidence in the North American Negro as from 7 to 13 per cent, with anywhere from 1 in 7 to 1 in 40 of those affected showing clinical disease and with a total of almost 135,000 diseased in the United States. Wintrobe4expressed the belief that 1 in 40 Negroes in North America and up to 9 per cent in Central and South America are so affected. Huck5first pointed out that the trait was transmitted by the male and the female as a mendelian dominant characteristic. It occurs in males in a ratio of 3 to 16; usually children and adolescents are affected, though

LONG SHARP foreign bodies in the stomach are alarming to patients, their relatives, and their physicians. Of course, they are potentially dangerous but most of them pass through the gastrointestinal tract without difficulty. When lodged in the esophagus they should be removed, usually by esophagoscopy but occasionally, in difficult cases, by thoracotomy. 1-3 Once they have safely reached the stomach gastroscopic removal is more difficult, normal passage of the foreign body is more likely, and the best policy is, usually, watchful waiting under close hospital and x-ray supervision. Such a policy was successfully carried out in the following case, which is reported because of its general interest and for reassurance of physicians in other similar cases. A 15-year-old boy was admitted to the hospital 5½ hours after swallowing a 6.5 cm. (2.5 in.) corsage pin. He had been asymptomatic since the accident and was asymptomatic on admission. Physical examination

Determines whether the competitive labor market model in California is corroborated or disconfirmed when approached from an occupational standpoint. Trends in employment by industry; Discussion of the apparent disconfirmantion of a competitive labor market model; Unemployment rates by industry and labor supply by skill. (Abstract copyright EBSCO.)

A fourfold classification of resources devoted to health is employed: treatment, prevention, information, and research. The typical relation between treatment and prevention is competitive, whereas that between information and research is complementary, as is the relation between the two pairs of subsystems. The four subsystems also differ in scale effects and in their temporal and spatial characteristics, affecting allocative choice between them. Using life expectancy as the dependent variable, an attempt was made to measure the significance of treatment variables, literacy (proxy for information), and potable water (proxy for prevention) for all nations in the Western Hemisphere. Both literacy and potable water proved highly significant, whereas none of the treatment variables were significantly related to life expectancy. Data from the United States also suggest a low marginal productivity of medical treatment in terms of life expectancy. Alternative explanations are discussed, together with indicated reallocation of resources away from medical treatment.

To the Editor: —I have not reviewed the literature, but in view of personal experience I was rather surprised to find that passage of Ascaris by mouth was considered unusual, as noted in the comment by Dr. Jennie Kantor (The Journal, July 28, p. 245). While a medical officer of the United States Navy, I was stationed for some months on the island of Guam. Among the natives of Guam, Ascaris , hookworm and whipworm infestations are common. Ascaris infestation is to be found in nearly 100 per cent of the natives who have not had a recent worm treatment. Massive infestations in children under 4 years of age amounting to more than 200 worms passed during a worm treatment is not uncommon. When a native patient in the naval hospital vomited an Ascaris worm, a note was made on the chart, but there was not apt to be any comment

The controversy over the nature and validity of unemployment statistics, which recurs whenever economic activity slackens, is indicative of the role these data are believed to play in public policy. In this paper an effort is made to distinguish between the public response effect and the analytical use of the statistics by technicians and policy-making officials. Perhaps the most pervasive influence of unemployment statistics upon policy results from the impact of the first upon the second: there is no doubt that policy formation is influenced by public opinion on the state of the economy. Some proposals for modification of the character of the official statistics on unemployment are more or less frankly premised on the desire to maximize the response effect in order to stimulate quicker or stronger policy action. The choice among alternative concepts of unemployment,-for there is obviously no unique definition,depends upon (1) relevance for policy purposes and (2) feasibility of measurement. Section I of the paper deals primarily with the rationale of the concept of unemployment used in the current measurement of the labor force by the U. S. Bureau of the Census, and its relevance for maj or purposes of economic policy. Section II deals with outstanding questions of measurement other than those of sample design and sampling variability-whether in fact the Census survey succeeds in its purpose of enumerating all persons actually in the labor market with jobs or seeking work. Section III raises, briefly, a more fundamental question whether labor force statistics measuring labor market attachments under existing conditions of demand bring within the scope of measurement all those persons "able, willing, and seeking to work" described by the Congress as within the scope of national economic policy. Section IV considers needs for additional information on unemployment, and concludes that more or less additional data of various kinds are needed depending upon the nature of economic policy-whether largely limited to fiscal and monetary policies directed toward stabilizing or expanding aggregate demand or aimed more directly toward aid to particular groups, industries, or geographic areas.