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Show Hope Seen for Malaria Cure Experiments by Scientists At Atlanta Prison Give Promise of Relief. WASHINGTON. Bureau of prisons pris-ons officials say there is strong hope that American scientists may have developed a cure for malaria after four months of an unusual government govern-ment experiment at the Atlanta federal fed-eral prison. Malaria has been, and still Is, one of the major obstacles of nature for Allied and Axis armies alike, particularly par-ticularly in the Pacific and Far Eastern East-ern theaters. Moreover, the Allied cause has been hampered by the loss of 95 per cent of the world's quinine supply to the Japanese. The nature of the new drugs, being be-ing used to treat prisoners who volunteer vol-unteer to be infected by malaria-carrying malaria-carrying mosquitoes, cannot be revealed. re-vealed. It is not known whether the Initial success of the experiment has contributed to malaria treatment in combat up to this time. Extremely Hopeful. However, army and navy medical officials and other medical men are extremely hopeful about the future possibilities which may result from the Atlanta project. The experiment is being conducted jointly by the bureau of prisoners, the United States public health service serv-ice and the national research council. It began in March with the infection of a group of specially picked volunteers. volun-teers. Periodically since then, in groups of 15, other volunteers have submitted to the test. The process of infection involves dividing the 15-man groups into five smaller groups of three men each. The latter groups are bitten by the same infected insect. Thus, those infected similarly and simultaneously make possible a clinical clin-ical study of the comparative effects of the disease and the treatment. It is understood that each 15-man crew must be treated ordinarily for 60 days. Test on Volunteers. Only physically and mentally perfect per-fect volunteers are accepted for the project, according to prison officials, inasmuch as there is an element of danger involved. Up to the present time, it was said, no fatalities have occurred. The men have experienced experi-enced illness of varying degrees. The experiment was deemed necessary nec-essary because neither quinine nor its more recent substitute, atabrine actually cure malaria. Armed forces personnel who responded re-sponded to those drugs were found to be very susceptible to a recurrence recur-rence of the disease as soon as they returned to a malarial environment.: |