Ipswich High School - Tiger Yearbook (Ipswich, MA)

Page 32 text:

isotopes, biologists can determine at what stage of growth the plant needs fertilizer, which may in turn lead to improved fertilizers and insecticides. Also, by giving radio-active plants to animals and injecting radio isotopes into cows, the scientists will be able to trace the complete dairy and meat cycle, and the effects of these prod- ucts whether beneficial or otherwise to the human body can be studied and determined. Agriculture as Well as industry, transportation, and medicine is going to produce some strange but beneficial results through the use of atomic energy and radio-active ma- terials. Although the majority of these peacetime potentialities are written for the future or are in the stage of experimentation, still if only half of these potentialities become realities, the people of the world can be assured of afull and abundant life and can look to the United States as a leader. And as for the United States, it will re- ceive many times over the original two billion dollars invested in the atomic bomb. OUR BROTHERS' KEEPERS By Mary Ellen Boylan Onahillside above the little Swiss village of Trogen, living in Specially prepared houses, are 112 children. When you see them studying, playing, or working, you think that they are just ordinary European children. But at night they scream in their sleep. Why? Because they are war or- phans. They range in age between four and fourteen, but they're just 8 beginning to have a normal child- hood. Little Andre now is playing glee- fully and enjoying himself. When he was eight years old, he was living with the Partisans and helping blow up bridges. Edward, who is playing ball with a little Austrian boy, was found wounded and half -smothered in a mass grave of seventy machine-gunned Poles. This boy's mother had saved his life byfalling on top of him. When he first met the Austrian, he said to the woman-in-charge, 'He talks Ger- man. Don't we have to fight him ?' Each child clings to a doll or a Teddy bear. He never leaves it, no matter where he goes. Each child has a memory of unforgettable horror. One child was fommd unconscious under a dead horse. In the rubble of an abandoned factory a girl of four was found half -starved. A French boy ac- tually saw his father decapitated by the Nazis. That's why these children scream at night. That's why when one tells them to draw a house or any building, they usually show it after a bombing. These children are the fortunate ones among Europe's 20,000,000 war orphans. They can remain in this little village until they are yotmg men and women, trained in some profes- sion, educated, healthy in mind and body. Their fortune is brought about by the Swiss youth organization, Pro Juventute, and to the good will and generosity of the Swiss people. Inthis little village called Kinder- dori Pestalozzi, the children help pro- vide food by farming the fields . These youngsters even aided in the construc -

Page 31 text:

and in transportation, has been dis- played in the light of peace, atomic energy is being used to Wage a war in the field of medicine. According to Dr. Arthur H. Compton, it is possible to produce some 450 radio-active ele- ments from nuclear fission. Ulti- mately, these 450 isotopes will be used invarious fields of commercial chem- istry and medical research. By replacing the normal atoms of a substance with radio-active atoms of the same element, the action of chemicals in the body can be traced. Radio-active isotopes are used in ex- periments to trace substances in the human body, and to observe the ac- tions of vitamins, proteins, and other products in the body. From these radio-active tracer atoms' injected into the body, new facts about heart disease and cancer can be learned. Although no cure for cancer has been discovered through the use of radio- active substances, problems on how cancer develops can be studied and perhaps eventually solved. Radio-ac- tive phosphorous has been used in studying leukemia, a disease which produces an excess of white corpus- cles. Radio-active iodine has been very useful in the treatment of goitre and thyroid tumors. With the aid of radio-active iodine, researchers have discovered that three fourths of the iodine in the body goes to the thyroid gland, thus they know that the iodine is instrumental in the treatment of the disease. Radio-active carbon is perhaps the most useful of the radio- active elements because of its pro- longed radio-activity. Isotopes of carbon have been used to study can- cer, diabetes, and to trace carbon de- position in teeth and bones. The gam- ma rays also make excellent X-rays, but because of the intense heat, they cannot be used on human beings. At this time, the tremendous problem that remains is determining the quan- tity and kind of materials which when deposited in certain tissues provide a safe dosage of radioactivity. Until this problem is solved, there is no curative use of radio isotopes. Not only are there experiments being conducted by hospitals and re- search centers but by private individu- als who can obtain radio-active iso- topes by buying them from a catalogue put out by the Oak Ridge, Tennessee laboratory if they are legitimate re- search scientists. This system in- creases the number of experiments not only in medical fields but in other fields as Well. Although radio isotopes cannot cure diseases they can be used for agricultural purposes, and perhaps they can clear up a few biological questions which have been unanswered for years. Radio-active isotopes of an ele- ment canbe used to learn more about animal and plant life. So far, there is no evidence that atomic energy or radio-active substances will increase the rate or amount of plant growth, but biologists are using radio-active isotopes to study plant metabolism a.nd photo-synthesis. Using carbon tracer atoms, they can study the cre- ation of plant food and the storing of solar energy in the plant which could mean that with sufficient knowledge, the artificial creation of food and the harnessing of the sun's energy might be accomplished. Employing different 7

Page 33 text:

tion of houses by chopping down trees and hauling them to the sawmills. Each tree that is cut down is replaced by a young sapling. Among this group of children is a Polish boy of eleven who is quieter than the rest. During the night, he doesn't scream, his sickness is worked out of his system with draw- ing paper and colored chalk. When he saw a blackboard in the Polish con- structed house,his face became elated. Immediately he cried for chalk. He brought a city to life--Warsaw, 1944. Inhis picture, houses crash in flamesg women and children desperately try to keep back the Nazis, husbands and fathers die an unmerciful death. The boy's name is Tadeusz Sas. Art ex- perts declare that there is nothing to teach him, he is a prodigy. He has planned a nine -panel mural: the first three will depict the siege of Warsaw, the second three, the occupation, and the last tlu'ee, the return of peace. At the completion of these panels Swiss art critics would like to send them on a world tour. Previously I mentioned that these children of Pestalozzi were the lucky ones of 20,000,000 war orphans. Let us now trace the unbelievable wander- ings of a group of war orphans. It is a tale of an indomitable Polish school- teacher who has just shepherded these unfortunate ones to their most recent halting place in Italy before they reach the Promised Land--Palestine. In June, 1941, the schoolteacher, Jacob Tobiasch, was spending a brief vacation about a hundred miles from Warsaw. In this same village was a summer camp for the children of the well-to-do. The air was becoming tense, and panic was increasing. Mr. Tobiasch offered to conduct the children back to the city. There were 180 children ranging in age from six to twelve. They were calm at first, but they soon became panicky. German bombers succeeded in tearing up the tracks. There was no alternative but to turn back toward Russian territory for safety. The Russian peasants were very kind to the crusaders and fur- nished them with food. Three years later Poland was liberated, and the war was over. Letters began to ar- rive from home. The little Jewish children waited week after week ex- pectantly for letters from their par- ents. Week after week they were dis- appointed. No letters could come. You see, their parents had all died in the Nazi death chambers. Mr. Tobiasch's wife and two children also perished. This group of fifty-six children was all that Mr. Tobiasch had left. Under the guidance of Mr. Tobiasch, the children made their way to Paris, where they endured many hardships. Then, six weeks later, the weary group arrived in the outskirts of Rome. The British had magnanimously granted them their entry permits to Palestine. The hopes of the children had all been raised. They were finally on the way to the Promised Land. Not only children are homeless, but men and women, too. There are millions of European adults wandering about aimlessly. Some want to return to their native countries, but the coun- tries don't want them. Some have been repatriated and are beginning their 9