Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 27 December 1937 — Page 9

iE

/agabon

2 i From Indiana=Ernie Pyle

[4

Steam Shovel Type Harvester and

"Portable Railroad Used to Gather

~~ Sugar Cane on Hawaiian Plantation. "WAIALUA, Island. of Oaht, Hawaii,

5" ° Dec. 27.—Let’s go out into the sugar cane fields and walk-around and get spiders

‘np our pants leg.

~ foday? Ten

Let's See, Where are they harvesting thousand acres is a lot of sugar cane. ‘There is a big map on the wall. The man finds 8 harvesting field on it and tell us how to get there. It’s three miles away. We drive out of town

and turn off onto a narrow lane of brick-red dirt. Green sugar cane towers on either side. It’s like driving in a canyon. mile or so a road shoots off to the side, into the cane forest. A cane field from a distance looks not unlike a cornfield at tassling time. The stalks grow eight feet high or more. i ; But the cane stalks twist around on the ground, and intertwine, and form an almost impenetrable snaky mass, two feet deep, before they finally decide to straighten out : and grow straight up. "A new cane-harvesting machine doesn’t cut cane. It breaks it off. . 2 fs machine is nothing more than what we think of as a steam shovel, except that it’s run by a Diesel engine and is jon caterpillar treads. _. At the end of its boom there hangs, instead of a bucket, a great jaw of curved steel prongs, like an upside down steel-trap. The operator can open or shut it, like a mouth. ; Well, he ps this heavy trap on fresh cane. The weight breaks the stalks off near the ground. Then the operator lifts his steel-trap, opens the jaws, lets it down again and picks up the loose cane. - Then he s over, drops the -whole thing on fore fresh cane and breaks it off. He keeps on doing this until he has broken off and gathered up enough cane to fill the jaw of his steel trap. Then he swings it over and dumps it at the side, and moves ahead a

few feet. | Filipinos Follow With Knives behind the machine come a dozen or So HE knives, who cut loose what stalks the machine missed and throw them up on the Bios ehind these men comes a small caterpillar tractor, with two big grader blades coming to a point in front, like a snow-plow. This tractor runs back and forth and levels off a flat strip of fresh ground— slicing down tie ridges; filling up the little irrigation ditches, making it all hard and level. " And then—believe .it or not—right behind the tractor comes another gang of men building a railroad ‘track! : They have a car piled high with sections of portable narrow-gauge track. They lift a section off by hand, lay it down, make it solid, clamp it to the section just to the rear, and then push the car on up over the new section. : : ~- And along behind the railroad builders comes another steamshovel affair, which simply picks up the cane piles and drops them over into the little cars on the track. These cars are run up to the field by donkey locomotives, then pulled out on the myriad temporary branches by mules. All this is done in the daytime. The loaded cane cars sit there until night. Then trains come around and haul them down to Waialua to. the sugar mill.

The longest haul on the plantation is about seven

miles.

The cars are lined up in the yards. And next

_.’ day they're shuttled in by a tractor, one by one, and

emptied into the mill for grinding. eee —————

. My Diary

+

‘By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

Telephone Interlude Proves Happy Moment in Christmas Festivities.

: EATTLE, Wash., Sunday—I have a great deal to S be thankful for this Christmas. There were moments when I was contemplating starting across the continent and during the journey itself, when’ thought I might not reach my destination on Christmas Eve, or for that matter, on Christmas Day. _ Everything, however, worked out beautifully. 1 “owe a debt of train officials who made my greeable. : 3 ‘Only one passenger came through all the way to Seattle and on part of the trip she was the only _ other passenger on the plane. She is Mrs. Hodges

journey comfortable and

¢ ‘from Council Bluffs, Towa. With the strange familiar-

he)

¢* © look on

€ 3 when" Eleanor,

some -little confusion. We ~. say something

3

“4ty that travel breeds, I soon felt she was almost an old friend. . : My son-in-law came so early to meet me-at the train, I had to glad ta see him, and even happier to see a somewhat pale and thin daughter who is evidently on the road to recovery. . “The hel looked as every proper house should 00 Christmas Eve, with wreaths of holly and Christmas greens and mysterious packages behind closed doors. Anna Gives the Orders ,- Anna sat up in bed and gave us orders. Her small daughter, Eleanor, ¥émarked with an evident gleam of joy in her eye, “Grandma has to do what mummy ‘says” One could see a lurking desire for the day herself, could order her “mummy”

around

everything was ready. The hours on Christmas morning flew by and we could hardly believe it when the call came through from Washington and Ft. Worth and we found ourselves talking to meshes of the family in 1 places. This three-way hook-up occasion Both Ii. Ne were just beginning .to to Elliott in Ft; Worth, when Johnny, in Washington, But everyone finally had their say and I was glad to - know the President had read parts of the “Christmas Carol” to the grandchildren in Washington, as ‘we ‘had read parts of it here to Eleanor and Curtis, ~~ Toddy everybody has been more than willing to

pest and think what a pleasant day Christmas is,

. . © put how fortunate it is that it only comes once a

i

+

- “TORY AND = ¢ is

oN 3

* year, for everyone is so kind we surely would all be

New “ri Public Library Presents—

Books Today

HERE are all sorts of bridges—devils’, saints’, war

bridges, toll bridges, covered bridges and ethereal, symbolic Tainbow bridges. Presenting the significance ‘of the bridge in civilization is BRIDGES IN HISLEGEND, by Wysur and Sara Watson

Jansen). Well-known - structures “of history are mentioned,

t such figures as the little shepherd boy who has been called the first civil engi0, miraculously, so the story goes, built a ‘pver the Rhone, “a feat w TERE Le .® 8 =».

+ book NINETY-NINE

arl)- should be welcomed by that countless

! book with some helpful suggestions and a word of en-

~and proceeds to give new ideas for all

seasons of the year, and for every woman who has time i ‘the BRA

Gn

Every quarter

gratitude to the various airplane and

keep him waiting. I was certainly ,

By afternoon, the Christmas tree was dressed and ’ py evening :

would break into the conversation.’

neither God, St. |"

8 NEW WAYS FOR |.} TO MAKE MONEY AT HOME (Hill- | |

"of resourceful, courageous, energetic women |. “40 augment the family income, acquire a | for pin money or an outlet for a particular | | _Eliia Wilson introduces her valuable little | |

a

MONDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1937

The Year in Science

New Discoveries in A J1 Fields Mark Advance of Knowledge

By Science Service

Ov a wide frontier that extends from the interior of the atom. to the farther reaches of astronomical space, science forged forward during 1937. Some of the discoveries in the world’s thousands of laboratories will \bear

fruit only in years to come.

Others will be more speedily

transformed into new industries, new cures for human

ills, new gadgets for easier, better and more intelligent

living.

Within ‘the once indivisible atom was found still an-

other fundamental particle.

Pigmy telescopes found ex-

ploding stars, extraordinary in brilliance and distance. “Living dead” in mental hospitals walked forth to active

life thanks to the shocking qualities of diabetes-conquering :

insulin. More and more is being learned about life itself, the way it is passed on from generation to generation and

how the brain acts.

Scientists viewed with apprehension the growing war madness of nations. They wondered how their great gifts

to humanity can be preserved for constructive ,peaceful : purposes instead of used for destruction. Pyschologists

urged that relations between peoples and nations be guided by scientific methods into paths of sanity. Bigger bridges, larger dams, more tunnels, faster and more efficient airplanes quickened the world’s material tempo and compressed its geography. Research presses onward, into 1938, motivated by the inquisitiveness of mankind and the urge for a better

future.

Medicine

P far-reaching promise was the report that the viruses of at least two animal diseases, in addition to those of certain plant diseases, are nonliving protein molecules. New and more successful methods of treating and preventing the largely uncon-

® ” 2

quered group of virus-caused ail- -

ments, to which belong infantile paralysis and . encephalitis, may result from the new knowledge of the nature of the causes of these diseases. . It has even -been suggested that this discovery may give a clue to the secret of life itself, since it gives scientists a chance to study the phenomenon by which nonliving matter appears to become endowed with characteristics of living matter. Other outstanding medical events of the year follow: Discovery that jaundice temporarily checks the progress of chronic deforming arthritis suggests that some degree of control of this crippling, disabling disease may be accomplished. Congress appropriated $750,000 for a National Cancer Institute building and” $400,000 for cancer research and control during the fiscal year. Cures by sulfanilamide of Type III pneumonia, gonorrhea, kidney and urinary tract infections, meningococcus meningitis and gas gangrene were announced. A so-called elixir of sulfanilamide caused over 80 deaths by poisoning from diethylene glycol used as a solvent in the remedy. 2 s ” NATIONAL Foundation for Infantile A Paralysis to strengthen and mobilize medicine's

attack on this disease was formed under the leadership of President

Franklin D. Roosevelt. ' The question of state and Federal aid in providing medical care was widely discussed. Discovery that ether-extracted

1 - wheat germ oil may cause sarcoma

in rats gave first evidence that a

product of “vegetable origin’ could

cause malignant tumors. A sugary substance from a common disease germ, the colon bacillus, was found to kill one kind of cancer in rats in 24 hours without destroying healthy body tissue.

Use of a new direction-finder

makes possible .repdir of fracture of the head of the thighbone in 20 minutes through a 1% inch incision without cutting muscles and with the patient up in a chair 48 hours later. = " Treatment of gonorrhea by arti-\ ficial fever and also by a new antitoxin was announced. T 8 .8 NEW male sex hormone, epiallopregnanolone, minute dmounts of which aid the development of male sex characteristics in birds, man and other _ani-

mals, has been isolated and made synthetically. Two new adrenal gland hormones were discovered, one of which brings maturity to sexually underdeveloped boys and . the other increases virility in male rats but causes atrophy of sex glands in female rats. : X-rays kill cells by suffocation, it was found in studies which also showed that cancer cells are more susceptible than normal cells to X-ray because they have a “greater speed of life.” . ” 2 os

Astronomy

HE discovery of two great exploding stars, supernovae the astronomers call them, through use of a relatively small Schmidt telescope operating from Mt. Palomar, Cal, the future home of the great 200-inch reflector, was an outstanding. feature of the astronomy of 1937. "These superrovae, only 15 of which had been discovered in all previous history, were each 500,000,000 times the sun’s brilliance and they were both extremely distant in the heavens.

Outstanding astronomical developments of the year include: The most extensive metagalactic cloud or star system, more than 50,000 tires the milky way’s size, was discovered. : Two new interstellar gases, neutral potassium and calcium, were discovered. A new system was discovered in Milky Way consisting. of giant cluster of hundreds of stars which revolves about; still larger cluster. ” 2 2

Engineering

RANSCENDING the mere building of bigger bridges and the breaking of records, is the growing appreciation on the part of the public of the effect of technology upon the social structure of nations and the world. _ The National Resourses Committee listed the. following inventions as likely to be widely used with social effects: Mechanical cotion picker, air conditioning,; plastics, photo-electric cell, artificiel fibers from cellulose, synthefic rubber, prefabricated houses, television, facsimile transmission, trailers, gasoline from coal, steep-flight aircraft, tray agriculture. Among - the engineering and

technological . advances of 1937

were: Golden Cate bridge and the San PFrancisco-Oakland Bay

- Bridge were completed and a

man-made . mile-square island created between them. A coaxial cable carrying 240 simultaneous telephone conversations or one’ television message was put in operation between New York and Philadelphia. Television of 441 lines was demonstrated.

Side Glances—By Clark

4 Christmas : : 1 4

This year’s Nobel Chemistry Prize was shared by Prof. Paul Karrer (above) of the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and Prof. W. N. Haworth of Birmingham University in England. Both made outstanding contributions fo the chemistry of -vitamins,

Television tubes were made available commercially. A new method of switching telephone calls, in which connections are made by closing relay-like contacts, is being put into use. Automatic radio receivers were authorized on U. 8. ships. Fatigue failure of machinery parts was traced to minute surface cracks which can be eliminated by initial polishing. t 4 8 ' 8 Biology HE last year was marked by

continued progress in tech-

. niques for the manipulation and

control of life in its earliest stages. Unfertilized eggs of rabbits were sent into first stages of development when placed in contact with the sperm of rats. Fruit flies, important in genetical research, were artifically fertilized for the first time. Parts of sea-urchin eggs from which the nuclei had been re-.

moved were stimulated to divide

to as many as 500 new cells by chemical and physical means” First commercial-scale production of chicks by artificial insemination of hens was tried. Other important events in the life sciences were: Paramecia, one-celled animals, previously thought to be without sex, were found to be of two kinds. Catalase, important in the life of cells, was obtained in pure crystalline form. 2 Heartbeats of insects were recorded with a new mechanism. ‘Experiments showed that trout, like other animals, can have their breeding period’ changed by changing the length of time they are exposed to light each day. Plant cancers, usually caused by germs, were experimentally induced with chemicals. ; Rat embryos were grown . for several days, in glass vessels containing .a circulating nutrient fluid. Flowers were induced to form fruit without pollenation, through spraying with growth-promoting substances. ; Water “activated” with X-rays was found to be toxic to plants and animals. . Major outbreaks of grasshoppers and Mormon crickets occurred in the West, and autumn studies of

+ egg deposits indicated probability

of similar outbreaks next year. 2 8 8

Chemistry-Physics

HE discovery of a ‘new subatomic particle heads the list of 1937 achievements in physi and chemistry. bey The new particle, yet unnamed and without a niche in the structure of atomic physics, is intermediate between the electron and the proton. It appears to" either a positive or negative electrical charge and preliminary determinations of its mass placed it at about 150 times the mass of the electron. Other outstanding events included: : . Element No. 87 reported discovered and named Madavium, Construction of a cyclotron atom smasher to generate poten-

A WOMAN'S VIEW By Mrs. Walter Fergusen

ISS MAE WEST is getting some 'A new curves. This time they are criticisms hurled at her for a Sunday evening broadcast which has put her sponsors in bad with a lot of home women. :

Repercussions from the famous | Westian wisecracks are likely to|.

reverberate for some time to come,

tables and in the church sewing|. circles have gathered .volume until:

they may soon become a roar. ' The music teachers are joining the

take much of an effort to millions of other women in the

crusade. : ‘Many people will oppose the movement. It is contended that attempts

not reasonably maintain that ment when we remember

i

£ £

4

The 1937 Nobel Prize in medicine went fo Prof. Albert SzentGyoergyi of Francis Joseph University, Szeged, Hungary. His work on vitamins won him the

$40,000 and the prestige the Nobel Prize represents. :

tials of 50,000,000 volts and cost-

ing $100,000 was begun. : The concentration of the heavy isotope of nitrogen was an‘nounced. : The oxygen in rocks has been found to be heavier than the oxygen in air or water. High-pitched sound waves were used to -gprecipitate chimney smoke. : : The most, accurate determination of the force of gravity ever made in America was completed. Ethyl cellulose was added to the chemical ' family of transparent wrapping materials. Improved electrostatic. highvoltage generator, operating in a’ pressure chamber to prevent electrical sparkover, was put in operation for atom-smashing experiments. : . os ® ® : g

Anthropology

EWLY discovered fossil | remains of the Java Ape-Man, Pithecanthropus erectus, definitely proved that this primitive being was a human being, not an ape. Associated fossils indicate that this ancient race is not as old as was once supposed. : Other notable researches include: ; Homo sapiens has something new to he proud of, since anthropologis 1937 dug up evidence that our own species of mankind was on earth much earlier than supposed. Skeletons in Palestine

‘caves reveal Homo sapiens pres-

ent among other, less enduring types of Old Stone Age man as early as 60,000 years ago. Peking Man, who inhabited a ‘China cave more than half a million years ago and whose remains have amazed modern science, became a more vivid figure from the past with discovery

. of a skull showing more clearly

‘| to ban filth only excite our appe-| tites for more, but I think we can-

what his face was like. The new skull includes eye sockef, nose bones and other previously unknown features. : Definite proof that man reached the Straits of Magellan just after the most recent ice age was unearthed” in caves where firescarred bones of extinct groune sloths and horses were found under four other culture layers and a bed of volcanic ash. : [America acquired new evidence of early inhabitants when Utah caves yielded flint and bone tools unlike those of Folsom Man dnd an infant's skeleton 5000 to 10,000 years old. ’ The biggest human skull ever found was unearthed among Indian remains in Virginia. _ Plint tools found near Bethlehem revealed man’s-existence in Palestine at the dawn of the Stone Age. g = 8 Psychology OST hopeful was the first experimental use in the United States of shock by insulin, metrazol, or other drugs for the treafment of the widespread mental disease dementia praecox. This treatment has demonstrated that

the brain is not deteriorated in -

these afflicted persons, but only functionally deranged. Wider and more intense interest

amen

Our

i

Dr. Clinton J. Davisson of the Bell Telephone Laboratories, who shared with . Prof. George P, Thomson of London he 1937 Nobel Prize in physics. They inde-

pendently discovered electron diffraction.

in practical social problems—war, unemployment, strilies, political attitudes — involving an under-

standing of human behavior was

a significant growth in the field of psychological research. Other outstanding clevelopments in psychology an¢ psychiatry were: Diagnosis of epilepsy was ace complished through brain waves, detecting hitherto unsuspected cases. Calcium was sucgessfully used to calm excited mental patients and banish their hgllucinations. Use of sleeping medicines was found to be partly responsible for an increase in mental disease. 5 88 ® 0 HIMPANZEES can become addicted to morphine, displaying craving as well as physiological symptoms, and are thus suitable for testing effects of narcotic drugs, it was discovered. Brain wave study led to revision in conceptions of the function of the brain, no longer considered only a connecting mechanism between senses and muscles but now known to originate activity. Discovery that a guinea pig's brain originates impulses identical with the brain waves of man threw doubt on the idea that such rhythms are associated with higher mental activity.

Earth Sciences

\ISCOVERY that the puzzling “cryptovolcanic structures”— volcano-like formations without evidence of subterranean fire—resembles the eroded remains of meteor scars is one of the outstanding achievements jn earth sciences this year, : Falling meteoric masses of great size, practically unimpeded by air friction, release energy in landing sufficient not only to backfire themselves out of the crater, but to throw the underlying rock into wavelike formations, which may be recognized even after thousands of years of erosion, it was discovered. © Hak Other. developments in earth sciences during the last year were: Story of the ice ages was read by cores of mud taken from bottom of Atlantic with “gun” sampler. : North Pole was established by Soviet scientists through use of air transport. The site of the dinosaurs’ “last roundup” in Utah was explored by paleontologists. Australopithecus, strange extinct ape of South Africa, was

shown to have marked human-.

like characters in teeth, shape of

face, and other details.

Studies of marine canyons showed that their extent and numbers were greater than heretofore supposed, but gave no certain clue to their origin. (Copyright, 1937. by Science Service)

How Hocsiers Voted in Congress, Page 14

»

| Jasper—By Frank Owen \

. of the United States.

A weather station near the

| which yous would nev

Lab Second Section | 3 2

PAGE 9

By Anton Scherrer Let's Bring Reading Material in Qur Doctors' Offices Up to Date. And Abolish Those One-Way Doors. -

T'S a little late to do anything about it this year, but beginning next week I'm going to gee to it that Indianapolis doctors do somes: thing about their waiting rooms. The way, things are going now, it’s just unbearable. As good a way as any, I guess, is to start with the literature lying on their tables. Maybe you know without my telling you that Indianapolis doc tors are behind in their reading, but maybe you don’t know how far behind they ‘are.

‘The other day, for instance, I came

across a 1931 copy of Time in the waiting, room of an. Indianapolis doctor. It had an account of Al-

| phonse (Scarface) Capone's trial up

in Chicago, and here it is almost time to release him. : If you believed everything you saw in a doctor’s waiting room, Herbert Hoover would still be President

I don't want to press the point Br. Seb too much, but it occurs to me that some Indianapolis doctors are terribly far behind in their reading of current history. And if strikes, me that Indianapolis doctors go out of their way to worry their patients. It isn’t only the literature lying on their tables, it’s the pictures on . their walls, too. Somehow, I object to sitting in a waiting room, and looking at an engraving of Land-% ¢ seer’s “The Dying Stag” until the doctor gets ready to admit me.

And What About That Door?

It isn’t fair. Ingeed, I doubt whether it's ethical,’ because if I remember correctly, the Jusjurandum (Hyppocrates Oath, to you) specifically objures physicians from taking advantage of their patients. I know plenty of cases, for instance, that went into a waiting room with nothing more than a running nose, and after an hour’s looking at “The Dying Stag” went home with a raging fever. Another thing that calls to high heaven for reform is the door leading from the waiting room to the doc tor’s office, I guess a door is necessary, but I see na reason for a one-way door. ‘To sit in a waiting room as I have been compelled to do and watch a patient leave if and never come back, sets my pulse going even worse than looking at “The Dying Stag.” "I have investigated the matter and been told tha the reason patients don't return to the waiting room is because the doctor dismisses them by another exit® in his private office. Maybe so, but it’s got me worried,’

I want to see the patient return to the waiting room. What's more, I don’t believe any doctor has a right to leave me wondering about the mysterious disappearance of the fellow who went in before I did. I'm not asking anything unreasonable, mind you, I'm not asking to see a restored patient. All I want is to see the patient returned to the waiting room in as good condition as when he left it.

Jane Jordan— Break With Irresponsible . Admirer Who Asks for Money, Wife Told.

‘WOMAN who does not want her letter published asks advice in regard to an embarrassing situa

tion. 8he has been married a long time and likes her

husband who is an admirable man, but romance has been gone for a long, long while. A younger man paid her attention for quite a while. She was too welle balanced to fall in love but found the attention flattering and enjoyed being taken to places her huse band had ceased to enjoy. : The young man was a very lavish spender and showered her with presents. This went on for some time before she discovered that he was an irresponsie ble sort of person who entertained the idea that

the world owed him a living. At last his extravas«’ gance caught up with him and now he is seriously embarrassed in a financial way. - v To her astonishment she finds that he expects aid of her which she cannot give. She has no ine tention of lending her husband’s hard-earned money to an improvident young man and doesn’t know why he should expect it. She wants to know how she cah extricate herself from this embarrassing position and

still keep her peace of mind. 2 #2 = : Answer—A person like the young man you describe has a pretty thick skin and feelings which are hard to hurt. No gentle rebuff will help at all. You'll simply have to tell him in no uncertain terms that you've written finis to your friendship and that you do not want, to see or hear from him again. If the presents he gave you are such that you can return them, it would be wise for you to do so. . You know now that you were foolish to accept them in the first place. He who gives for the pleasure of giving does not expect returns, but there were strings attached to each gift you received, strings with which he sought to bind and obligate you to help him when ever he needed it. = - If his mother was one who always came to his res. cue when he was in hot water, he is apt to expect every. other older woman to react to him as if she were his mother. You'll: have to give him the surprise of his life by showing your contempt for his ina-

bility to manage his own life: and crying. on -some

woman’s shoulder when he gets burned. You did not tell me how much your husband knows of your folly. I trust he knows enough that you can tell him the rest without fear and let him stand bee tween you and the parasite. If you went around with the young man very much, the chances are that your husband . knows something about your little fling if not, its outcome. . - | SE . It would be better for you to confess the who sode to him and de d on his generosity than the young man frighten you:into lending him money Even if you could afford to buy him off, you couldn’t rest assured that he wold stay bo 1 peace of mind is what you want youll just have ft be honest with yourself, your husband and the youn man who fooled you into thinking a

ng he was your f