The Key West Citizen

Medicines Found To Aid H-Bomb III

By Alton L. Blakeslee

AP Science Reporter

CHICAGO (/) Medicines taken either before or after H-bomb attacks show promise of saving lives from deadly radiation, scientists said today.

Such medicines now are saving animals from otherwise fatal doses of X-rays. The animals include monkeys, a close relative of man.

The before-attack treatment could be easy-to-get pills.

The after-attack treatment could be injections of bone marrow. It might even be animal bone marrow, perhaps someday stocked in marrow banks.

Animal experiments giving the basis for some protective medicines were described today to the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

Abundant chemicals known as sulfhydryl compounds are known to save mice from exposure to X-rays which normally would kill all of them. One such chemical is Cysteine, a building block of proteins. These chemicals work only if taken before exposure to radiation.

Drugs of this class also protect monkeys, a much higher form of life, said a new report by Dr. B. G. Crouch and Dr. Richard H. Overman of the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, Memphis.

Monkeys fed one of these drugs and then exposed to killing amounts of X-rays are still alive six months later, and are apparently normal, they said.

One of the bad and early effects of radiation is damage to the bone marrow and organs which form blood cells and blood.

Within seven weeks time, the monkeys' blood appeared quite normal with the pretreatment.