Medicine: Scopalamine Modified

"Twilight sleep," popular name for the use of scopalamine as an anaesthetic during childbirth—a method which fell into disfavor after it was found to have a detrimental effect on babies thus born—is still used regularly in a modified form in the Long Island College Hospital, Brooklyn, and some other hospitals. Dr. John 0. Polak has used it as a routine procedure in labor, with a resulting infant mortality for 1,000 cases of but 2.5 per cent, about one-fifth of the average for other deliveries. It should, of course, be administered only in hospitals...

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