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Icugh The Brain Is Negative: Because of occasional severe reactions to Pas-eur .treatment, vaccine should not be given indis-riminately. However, reactions to the Pasteur reatment should deter no one from recom-nending treatment in proper cases. For persons :nown to be scratched or bitten, vaccine treatment hould be started immediately, (1) when the ani-lal is apprehended and presents clinical Signs of abies; (2) when the animal is killed and the rain is found positive for rabies by microscopic xamination; (3) when the animal is killed and, icugh the brain is negative by microscopic exam-lation, the animal is suspected of being rabid; id (4) when a person is injured by a stray ani-lal that escaped or by one that cannot be identi-sd.
Among the most interesting developments in brain studies was a finding that corrected the long-held conviction that glucose was the only fuel the brain was capable of using. George Cahill studied brain metabolism in persons who fasted for more than 30 days as part of a weight reduction program. By sampling blood entering and leaving the head, he was able to show that during fasting the brain will readily metabolize fatty acids, the breakdown products from deposits of body fat. Careful intelligence tests before and after the fast failed to show any mental impairment during the period of fasting. Cahill said that in fact the subjects were at least as sharp after fasting, and maybe a bit sharper.
1. If new medical techniques can prolong a healthy life far beyond the present span, who will be selected to remain alive? Society, through law, probably will not leave it to the workings of the marketplace or the caprice of physicians. At the very least, it will try to prevent a black market in hearts and lungs. But if science manages to transplant a human brain, the law will be in serious trouble. Which individual will be considered legally "alive"—the one into whose functioning body the new brain has been deposited, or the one whose brain with all its memories has merely moved to a new home? |
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