As a girl in Hartford, Conn., Ruth Siegel suffered severe and frequent nosebleeds. As she grew older they got worse, sometimes occurring daily and costing her a cupful or more of blood. Last week, to stop her nosebleeds. Ruth Siegel Ribicoff, 51, wife of the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, underwent a new operation—the first effective treatment that medical science has been able to devise in half a century of trying.
Mrs. Ribicoff suffers from a rare disease called hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia. It is inherited, like brown eyes, in a Mendelian dominant pattern; some of Mrs. Ribicoff's cousins have it, but...