Hiccups are no joke when you have been hiccuping for two monthsas Anna Mayer had. Shrunk to a starved 82 pounds, she lay convulsed with racking spasms, 60 to the minute. Desperate measures were called for. The surgeon cut into her neck above the collarbone, snipped off an inch and a half of the right phrenic nerve. Like a disconnected electric vibrator, her convulsions slowed, stopped. "When do I eat?" she asked feebly.
Dr. Lester Samuels, chief surgeon of a Veterans Administration hospital in Louisiana, had flown to New York City (by special permission of President Truman, to whom the patient had...
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