Medicine: Painkiller

The green and crimson pitcher plant, which grows in swamps from Labrador to Florida, and lives on insects trapped by its leaves, was acclaimed last fortnight at the American Medical Association meeting as a powerful painkiller. For almost ten years Drs. William Bates, Bernard Judovich and Winifred Stewart of Philadelphia have given thousands of injections of an ammonium fluid extracted from the plant to patients with neuritis, rheumatism, cancer. Injected into the spine or directly into the sore nerves, the new drug, the doctors said, has three advantages over other injected painkillers such as alcohol or novocain: 1) it does not...

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