Adventures in Science: Interview with Melville H. Manson

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Watson Davis: Our Adventures in Science guest today is Dr. Melville H. Manson, Scientific Director of the Muscular Dystrophy Associations of America.

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Watson Davis: And Dr. Manson, muscular dystrophy is a very serious disease and perhaps you'd better tell us just what it is and how serious it really is.

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Melville H. Manson: Well, Mr. Davis, muscular dystrophy is a chronic deteriorating disease of muscles, characterized by wasting and degeneration, replacement of the muscle tissue by fatty tissue and connective tissue, and it's inevitably a fatal disease at the present time.

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Watson Davis: Do many people have it, I mean, you mentioned children, particularly?

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Melville H. Manson: We don't know, Mr. Davis, the exactly number of patients who have muscular dystrophy in this country. It is estimated that there are 200,000 men, women, and children with this disease.

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Melville H. Manson: It is a non-reportable disease because two-thirds of the incidence occurs in children and many times because of the fatal prognosis these children are hidden away and shielded from public view so that an exact census is not known. But we think that 200,000 is perhaps the conservative estimate.

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Watson Davis: Well, are these children who contract this disease? And by the way, what causes it? Is it a infectious disease, or what?

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Melville H. Manson: No, it is not an infectious disease. It is not a contagious disease. Uh, what causes it is the reason to be, really, for the muscular dystrophy associations of America. In children, which is the most common form, it is hereditary in about thirty-five percent of the instances.

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Melville H. Manson: It is carried by the mother and is a, so-called, sex-linked recessive characteristic. Another form is the juvenile form, which usually occurs about puberty. This also has an inheritance factor of the direct type. The third form of muscular dystrophy is the, so-called, Facioscapulohumeral type, so termed because it involves primarily and initially the muscles of the shoulder girdle and the muscles of the face. Then there are, of course, mixed types which can occur spontaneously and may not necessarily have any hereditary factor.

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Watson Davis: Well then, due to the fact that it does have a hereditary factor in some of its forms, obviously a good deal of care should be exercised in those who have had it in having children. Isn't that, do you go into that sort of thing?

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Melville H. Manson: Well if the hereditary factors are understood by parents who have muscular dystrophy in the family, I think that's a consideration that should be paid attention to.

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Watson Davis: Now, you're a scientific director of the Muscular Dystrophy Associations of America. How long has there been this kind of a concerted attack on this particular kind of disease?

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Melville H. Manson: Well MDAA is one of the more youthful health agencies. It was founded in 1950. Doctor Ade. T. Milhorat, who was the chairman of our medical advisory board, was engaged in some research on muscular dystrophy, and as a, with a private grant, and when some of his patients and parents of patients learned about this and that this grant was to come to a termination, they decided to found an organization to raise money for research which is and will continue to be our primary objective.

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Watson Davis: And do you support research in your own laboratories? Or [[Cross Talk]] provide grants?

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Melville H. Manson: From the initial grant-in-aid which was made in 1950, there are now approximately one hundred active grants-in-aid in this country and in 6 countries abroad.

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Watson Davis: What progress is being made in discovering new facts about the way it's caused and the treatment?

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Melville H. Manson: At the present time, there is no known treatment, but there are some things which we think are rather exciting in the research program. One specific is the fact that about two years ago, there was a strain of mice discovered which have muscular dystrophy which is similar to, if not the same as, muscular dystrophy in human beings.

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Watson Davis: Where was that strain discovered?

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Melville H. Manson: At the Jackson Laboratories in Bar Harbor, Maine.

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Watson Davis: That's very interesting that there are literally thousands upon thousands of mice up there. I was up there once, Dr. Manson, and you could hear the movement of these mice like a ripple of breeze through a [[laughter]] forest. And that happens when they wake up and when they go to sleep. There's a change in this kind of noise. Out of that laboratory come a good many interesting experimental animals. If I remember correctly, there's one that's a mouse that's very obese, for instance. And now that does give you an experimental animal, doesn't it?

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Melville H. Manson: Yes. For the first time, really last fall, these mice were made available as a result of a grant from MDAA and are now being utilized in a fairly large number of laboratories throughout this country.

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Watson Davis: How did you happen to, how was that mouse found? Did they just note it among the mouse population there, or was an attempt made to find this particular kind of animal?

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Melville H. Manson: No, apparently this was a spontaneous mutation in one specific strain of mice. The observation was made by a senior medical student, as I recall it. And as a result of that, as I said, grants have been made so that these mice can be propagated and used in other laboratories.

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Watson Davis: Well now, has there been any use of drugs on the mice to try to find out what is a possibility of treatment?

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Melville H. Manson: The area of drug therapy is just really in its infancy and just beginning as far as the mice are concerned. There have been a whole host of medications, ranging through a series of vitamins and protein extracts and protein hydrolysates. But at the present time, none have had any significant or lasting effect on muscular dystrophy.

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Watson Davis: What about the possibility of additional research? Does your association, your group, have a regular program of raising money during the year?

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Melville H. Manson: Yes, there is an annual drive for muscular dystrophy conducted throughout the United States and mostly around Thanksgiving time. In the past years, each succeeding year has been more successful as far as fundraising and has made possible not only the expansion of our search program to institutions through grants and aid, but very shortly there will be started instruction on an institute for muscle disease.

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Melville H. Manson: to be located adjacent to the New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center. This will be in the form of laboratories entirely, and providing space for some 40 or 50 post-doctoral scientists with the necessary ancillary help to devote themselves to finding the cause and an effective treatment for muscular dystrophy and related diseases.

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Watson Davis: This is a sort of a specialized attack upon this disease in special situations, sort of a crash attack, as it were.

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Melville H. Manson: Well, in - you could characterize it that way. The institute will not supplant but rather will supplement our grant-in-aid program and I think the principal reason for concentrating this attack is space. Our universities and our scientific institutions do not have adequate space nor do the investigators have time to devote entirely to investigations of this type.

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Watson Davis: I think I'd ask you, Dr. Manson, about this muscular dystrophy is a crippling disease, isn't it? How would you compare it with polio, and which is also, in some of its phases, a crippling disease?

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Melville H. Manson: The principal difference, Mr. Davis, is between the crippling and disabling effects of poliomyelitis and a number of other similar diseases and the muscular dystrophy is that they are primarily a disease of the central nervous system with a secondary effect upon the muscles. And in most instances, once the disability has become static, so to speak, it remains so and is amenable to surgical and orthopedic measures for correction. Muscular dystrophy, on the other hand, is definitely a progressive, disabling disease.

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Watson Davis: What about patients? Suppose someone, friend [[of]] a friend, or a relative contracts muscular dystrophy. What can be done about it? Have you got other chapters throughout the country that people--

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Melville H. Manson: Yes, from the initial start in 1950 till the present time, there have been developed over 300 chapters. These are mostly on a county basis and are in practically every state in the union.

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These chapters are authorized to conduct a patient service program, which consists of the furnishing of wheelchairs and braces and orthopedic appliances,

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payment for physical therapy when it's indicated and prescribed by a physician, the development of recreational and educational programs, and a host of things to make life more worth living for these people who are inevitably doomed.

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Watson Davis: And do you have help from various groups? I believe the letter carriers and the firefighters are working with your associations, your chapters in carrying on this work.

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Melville H. Manson: That is correct. In 1953, the letter carriers of America made marks for muscular dystrophy and raised nearly three and a half million dollars.

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The following year, the Firefighters and the Fire-chiefs Associations of America adopted muscular dystrophy as their charity, and again, in a very short period of time, raised somewhat over four million dollars for the association.

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Watson Davis: And are there other groups?

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Melville H. Manson: There are any number of other groups, the Odd Fellows and the Rebeccas, Eagles and their Auxiliaries, the Tall Cedars of Lebanon, Junior Chambers in Commerce and some localities, and a whole host of people are interesting themselves in this cause.

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Watson Davis: And all of these people together with your own association are devoting themselves to, sort of, outlawing this disease as it were, finding out the cause, perhaps a treatment for it,

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and I think it's one very interesting thing Dr. Manson, that the whole desire is to really do away with the cause of a disease, in this case as well as in polio, and so forth. You think there will be a possibility of that sort of thing happening?

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Melville H. Manson: Well, in our minds there is no question about the fact that eventually, and we hope sooner than eventually, connotes, there will be an effective treatment for muscular dystrophy.

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It is most probably a metabolic disease, there is some evidence that vitamin E-like substances may have a, play a part in this, and we are convinced that the future hope for victims of muscular dystrophy lie in this program of research.

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Watson Davis: Well thank you very much, Dr. Manson, our Adventures in Science guest today is Doctor Melville H. Manson, scientific director of the Muscular Dystrophy Associations of America.

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