Discoveries

Despite a dwindling federal money supply, Harvard researchers this year finished up a number of pioneering studies, venturing new ideas in almost every major scientific field. While Harvard has yet to come up with a cure for the common cold, its experimenters and theoreticians made headway in diagnosing cystic fybrosis, alleviating insomnia, and treating sickle-cell anemia.

The discovery that made the biggest headlines--in Boston, where it was lauded, as well as in Los Angeles, where its originality was challenged--concerned the induction of bone growth in humans. Announced at the beginning of May, "osteoinduction," a technique advanced by surgeons and researchers at the Medical School, uses bones from crushed cadavers to prompt bone regeneration. Since cadaver bones are easier to obtain than bone from a patient's body, osteoinduction should prove 100-per-cent effective, 35 per cent better than the old process.

Medical researchers also laid claim to 100-per-cent accuracy in early January, when they announced what they called the first reliable test to identify carriers of cystic fybrosis, the most common lethal inherited disease among white Americans. And, although they have not yet determined the accuracy rate, a team of Med School physicians in November discovered a method of sickle-cell anemia treatment that may be a major, if first, step in curing the often-fatal disease, which afflicts 30,000 to 60,000 Black Americans a year.

Two of the studies completed this year once again shortened the list of food items safe to eat. In early January, Dr. Paul Oglesby '38, dean of admissions at the Med School, published the results of a 23-year study linking highcholesterol food with the incidence of fatal heart disease. A couple of months later, Dr. Brian MacMahon, chairman of the Department of Epidemiology at the School of Public Health, published the results of a seven-year study which found that coffee drinkers are more than twice as likely as non-drinkers to contract cancer of the pancreas.

Although the discovery of four pieces of type beneath the Wadsworth Gate did not affect the scientific world, it caused quite a stir among historians and anthropologists when it was announced in March. Found while construction on the new subway line continued, the type was dated before 1674 and is believed to be linked with the first printing press in America.

Despite the advances made in all of these fields, no amount of Harvard know-how could generate what might have affected quite a few Harvard affiliates: relief from the yearly flu epidemic. The annual blight hit from late November to mid-January, keeping dozens of Harvardians bedridden for days. While healthy scientists busied themselves in their laboratories, sickly patients could only follow the age-old advice of Dr. Warren E.C. Wacker, director of University Health Services, who recommended rest, fluids and aspirin.