Two years ago, a New York
boy fell from a sixth-story
window. The result: a severely
damaged spinal cord which, at the
time, meant permanent paralysis.
Recently, however, a medical pioneer,
Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz of Brooklyn, con
ducted a radical experiment involving the
boy. He taped electrodes over four of the
lad's key leg muscles. Then an attending
engineer twisted a computer dial; electrical
impulses were fed into the long-unused
muscles and the boy rose gingerly to his
feet! In that simple act, he became the first
paraplegic in history to stand up by the
strength of his own muscles.
But the wizardry of medical electronics
reaches beyond the problem of paralysis.
In modern hospitals, age-old diagnostic
instruments are rapidly being replaced by
new electronic ones. Instantaneous elec
tronic thermometers and stethoscopes have
taken over the time-consuming jobs of
their predecessors.
"""Tiny radio pills, dubbed "gutniks" by
doctors, are used to pinpoint intestinal
troubles. Swallowed by the patient, they
act as miniature radio transmitters, broad
casting temperatures and pressures from
the gastrointestinal tract. One radio pill
even measures acidity in a newborn baby's
stomach and thereby tells the physician
what formula to prescribe.
Hemorrhages in the stomach can be pin
pointed exactly by having the patient swal
low a string of tiny Geiger counters. A ra
dioactive substance injected into the blood
stream will turn up at the bleeding site
and register on a counter.
The electrogastrograph, invented in Rus
sia and now undergoing tests in the U.S.,
detects stomach ulcers and cancers. An
electrode is placed on the surface of the
abdomen to pick up the minute electrical
waves which the stomach sends out when
it contracts. Cancerous tissue generates
clpctrivity of a different frequency from
that of normal tissue, and analysis of these
waves indicates the presence and location
of tumors before they are visible by X ray.
In dentistry there also is a startling new
electronic development. Dentists now can
implant miniature radio monitors in tooth
cavities batteries and all to chart faulty
chewing patterns that may be the cause of
gum disease.
Another electronic diagnostic device is
the portable electrocardiograph. Until
now, doctors had no means of detecting
the kind of heart trouble that shows up
only during exercise or in the midst of an
emotional crisis. "Patients may show no
sign of trouLJe when they're in your of
fice," says one heart specialist "It's when
they're running for the bus or watching
the aluvn iicker that attacks occur."
Today, a patient can wear a portable
electrocardiograph, which pipes a continu
ous record of his heartbeat into a pocket
recorder. If a radio broadcasting attach
ment is included, the device can even trans
mit heurtbeat directly into the doctor's of
fice. Via radio and telephone, a doctor in
New York recently listened to his itiner
ant patient's heartbeat from California!
BUT THE most startling example of elec
tronic control applies to heart block,
which fells 40,000 people a year. In heart
block, communication between the nervous
system and heart muscle is blocked. Two
years ago, the only remedy was use of a
gigantic electrical stimulator. Two elec
trodes, fastened to the chest wall or to the
heart muscle itself, sent painful wallops
of electrical current through the chest to
make the heart contract
Surgeons today can actually implant an
artificial "pacemaker" in a heart-block pa
tient. The automatic ticker is painless and
restores him to normal activity. The pace
maker, a signal generator the size of a
cigarette pack, is buried in the abdomen
just under the skin. Two wires run be
neath the skin to the heart where they are
sewed directly into the tough muscular
part of its wall. When the batteries wear
down, the patient undergoes a simple op
eration to replace them.
Another version of the cardiac pace-
Coming:
The Era
of
Electronic
Medicine
Techniques which have
revolutionized U.S. industry
now offer new hope
for solving the most
vexing health problems
By LYDIA RATCLIFF
Family Weekly. Dectmbct Jf . I9S1
maker allows the patient to step his pulse
up or down, depending on whether he wants
to walk, run, or sleep. A radio transmitter
is taped to the patient's chest over the spot
where the pacemaker is installed. It is
connected to a simple battery unit in his
pocket, which has dials to increase or de
crease the heartbeat.
Russian scientists are using electrical
stimulus to solve the problem of insomnia.
They report that more than 100,000 pa
tients have been successfully treated by
passing low-current electricity from elec
trodes on the eyes to one at the nape of
the neck, thus temporarily blocking sleep
killing brain activity.
These are only a few of the strides medi
cal electronics has made to date. If they
seem considerable, the future promise is
even greater. '
When the New York paraplegic stood
for the first time, he pointed the way
toward new hope for 250,000 of his co
sufferers. Dr. Kantrowitz believes that it
is just a matter of time before more com
plex motion can be electronically induced.
He says it is quite possible that parapleg
ics may one day carry miniature com
puters, linked to muscles, that will let them
walk, run, and even dance!
Muscle stimulation might also free polio
victims from imprisonment in iron lungs.
Here, nerves leading to chest-throat mus
cles are impaired, and the patient is un
able to breathe. Rhythmic electrical stimu
lation promises to reactivate dead breath
ing muscles as well.
Researchers have also discovered appetite-control
areas of the brain that
might be regulated electrically to prevent
obesity. Others have located centers of ag
gressiveness and extreme pleasure in the
brain that might be stimulated to prod re
calcitrant soldiers at the battlefront or pro
vide .instant bliss for the discontented.
While it is doubtful this knowledge will
ever be put to this kind of use, one Swedish
doctor has found evocation of the pleasure
sensation extremely effective in easing
pain for terminal-cancer patients.
ULUSTIATION IV OSCAR HEtMAN
Glands, too, might be prodded electrical
ly. Stimulation of the adrenal cortex, for
example, might be used to produce extra
hormone for the control of arthritis or
low blood pressure.
But more practical work is getting the
lion's share of attention. High priority is
going to the development of electronic aids
for the deaf, mute, and blind. Plans have
already been drawn for a compact instru
ment that will allow the speechless to talk.
The "vocal typewriter" will have a key
board of commonly used words. When the
mute punches a key, the device will emit
the desired word in vocal form. The mute
might have both a 500-word speaker for
his living room and a small, 100-word
pocket version.
FOR THE iilind, medical engineers are
exploring the possibilities of a similar
device that would translate printed words
into audible sounds, enabling the blind to
"read." An electronic "seeing-eye dog" also
is a near reality. The device emits a beam
of light that precedes the blind person.
When it hits an obstacle or a step, the re
flection triggers a warning system.
Doctors also believe that someday the
heart will be reproduced mechanically and
powered either by an outside battery or by
a spring mechanism wound like a clock by
the breathing muscles. Scientists at Bell
Laboratories have already built a duplicate
of the brain cell with transistor compo
nents. They know that an electronic copy
of the brain is no longer a question of size:
"molecular electronics" today offers com
puter parts the size of molecules, compact
ness comparable to that of the brain itself.
Clearly, scientists have a long way to go
before they can duplicate the exquisite
human brain or build a portable heart.
Yet their achievements to date suggest a
wide horizon of possibilities ahead.
More than 3,000 doctors and engineers
in the U.S. alone are combining their tal
ents to bring these miracles into being.
Their efforts point to the dawn of a new
era when "inner space" will be as fully
explored as outer space.
Family Weekly, December 20, 1962 9
SARAKA SOLVES THE PROBLEM -OF
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I YOU CAN
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Pago 3: CBS.
Pog.i 4, Si UPI.
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