Show GENERAL HUGH S JOHNSON 0 vasa F clr f 5 AIR POLITICS up to 18 months ago the chief beet beef of this column was the appalling series ot of commercial airplane accidents and the sloppy y work and unsatisfactory reports of the bureau of the department of commerce in charge under the former secretary it was a political pot house and the influence of big aviation interests was not conspicuous by its absence then after four years effort senator mccarran got his bill through setting up the civil aeronautics authority as an independent non parti ran ean agency it separated executive function from judicial and legislative ones put the former in the hands of an administrator set up an independent safety board to plug up the ghastly gap in the departmental administration the authority was promptly manned with competent experts this column seen anything to kick about for more than a year I 1 i in which about ger miles were flown without a i death an unprecedented safety record CAA is not entitled to all the credit but it rates its share it i is s now proposed under the reorganization act to abolish the safety board and reduce the authority to I 1 W Z ta vo N 4 rl IX 4 SENATOR mccarran Is his reform doomed old status as a bureau of the department part ment of commerce right back where we started from many in congress the commercial air pilots and informed air travelers are up in in arms against this shocking proposal butche wg avia i i tion interests are not saying a word they prefer king log to king stork and king sugar papa most of all the dope is that the change will go through if they do not oppose it it is doubtful if they will but the air traveling public ought to join the air pilots in forceful opposition these are the people whose hides bides are endangered there are only two apparent reasons a for wrecking a unit that was working so well to go back to a system that one is politics and the other is amateur p professorial sori piddling with an organization chart in the rarefied academic atmosphere mo sphere of the brownlow committee neither is good enough politics is what we dont want here the ebest best reorganization chart in the world is no good without the right men in the proper places with unhampered opportunity to do their stuff MEDICAL advancement if the astonishing developments in medicine continue at their recent rate many will have to be shot on judgment day there is a professional prejudice against laymen discussing these de most cruel deceptions have resulted from ignorant ballyhoo of quack cures the medical profession has suffered so much on the rebound that any popular publicity touches its most sensitive spots recent developments are marvelous the control of many types of pneumonia and one of the most stubborn social diseases by the still experimental five day cure for sy phillis the checking of the ana anaemia ernia of old age these are but an acceleration of the improvement in four decades which saw the conquest of typhoid typhus yellow fever and several tropical diseases surgery does not lag in a recent e minor siege with it myself I 1 ran across a professional paper of which a coauthor co author with a navy surgeon is one of our most distinguished army medicos the service jias has lagged behind none in its group contribution trib ution to this revolution which is revising the mortality tables by amazingly extending the years of our lives reed gorgas keuer keller grayson metcalf magee mcintyre they are the peers of ay any the thing in this paper th that at would astonish anybody and which I 1 myself have seen and felt is t the he tremendous advance in anaesthesia another mystic word and battlefield surgery since soldiers in battle have had to have their shattered legs cut off with no more surcease than a horn of hootch anaesthesia means eliminating or dulling pain under the knife this art has so far advanced that under a competent surgeon I 1 would have little apprehension of either danger or pain under any ordinary operation |