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By Leona ALBerts WASSERSUG A. last, thanks to a simple chemical called alloxan, the mystery of that murderous and baffling dis- ease, diabetes, is well on its way to- ward ultimate solution. Diabetes kills some 37,000 persons yearly, and its victims are four times greater in \number than those cnippled by infan- tile paralysis. Alloxan is the “open sesame” to the enigma of diabetes. With it, re- searchers have, for the first time, a simple experimental method of giv- ing diabetes to the usual laboratory animals. This means that doctors now have a direct approach toward solving some of the more complicated theo- retical problems concerning diabetes. It also means that they now have a quick, easy way for testing different diabetes remedies such as diets, medi- cines and glandular extracts. — Leona Alberts Westersug is @ graduate of Sim- mons College end a former laboratory technician. Hier medical uelenca articles have ihheared in the ar. ersug mak trae, Massachusstis. As the conservative New ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE says: “The discovery of alloxan diabetes has opened opportunities for re- search never before dreamed of, and these new pathways of investigation should be exploited.” In the two years since its original - discovery, the results of experiments with alloxan have been published in at least eight different countrics. Everywhere doctors are interested in this new diabetes-causing chemical. In diabetes the insulin-secreting cells of the pancreatic gland fall be- low par in function. As a result, the level of the sugar (glucose) in the blood, ordinarily checked by insulin, rises to abnormal! heights. That is why diabetes is sometimes called “the sugar disease.” That is why most diabetics need their daily hypodermic quota of insulin. Defi- ciency in insulin is the outstanding feature of diabctes. The mystery of diabetes lies in the fact that there is no altogether satis- factory explanation of why the insu-