The emerging new scientific model provides for the influence of the mind on the brain and body, of the nonmaterial on the material. Says Pert, who is chief of the section on brain biochemistry at the National Institute of Mental Health: "I'm no longer interested in studying merely the brain. I'm ready now to study the mind. And I think it's now possible to do”.

Despite this growing evidence, there are still doubters who do not believe that what goes on in our heads profoundly affects the health of our bodies. Some people do not want to believe, because if the brain has such power over what happens in our bodies, then we might have to watch our attitudes if we wish to be healthy.

For our beliefs to influence our physical functions, there must not only be pathways and channels connecting head to toe but also some system of messengers for the brain to issue directives to the body. An explosion of knowledge in the neurosciences has uncovered dozens of chemical messengers that the brain uses for its far ranging influence in the body and communication between cells.

VD people do not forget that syphilis has a proud tradition as a subject of research and a field of medicine and public health. There is something here to counterbalance the low esteem in which VD has been held in other quarters through the ages.

Gonorrhea lacks the peculiar immunity problem of the treponematoses, and for the present at least there is no threat that a vaccine would interfere with diagnosis of gonorrhea as it probably would with syphilis. This problem may arise if a blood test for gonorrhea comes into use, but it is not likely to be the same as in syphilis...

The new statistics emphasized that gonorrhea is now the paramount VD problem, but that syphilis has moved up from fourth place to third among reportable diseases; that the increase in VD in the last few years has shown up in all age groups and is not primarily in teenagers or other young people...

Two CLAIMS of VD control have been described in these pages, one in an Alabama prison and one in China. The first is probably acceptable at face value but doesn't help us much. It related only to syphilis, and we could hardly think of applying the methods used to the whole population.

Both Edgar Snow and Felix Greene, American and Canadian observers respectively, speak of the sex practices of the Chinese and the attitudes they reflect. There is, on the one hand, a new equality of women, and on the other, a discouragement of premarital or extramarital sex.

Additional information comes from sources that are likely to be trustworthy, especially since different observers are in pretty good agreement. For example, a report datelined March 2, 1969, by the Canadian journalist Colin McCullough, tells us that in 1949 there were eight medical schools in all of China, and only 20,000 doctors trained in Western medicine.

When he returned from a visit to North Vietnam in June, 1969, Henrik Beer, Secretary General of the League of Red Cross Societies with headquarters in Geneva, was reported in the press as having spoken highly of doctors and social workers there, and as having said that civilian health had improved despite wartime shortages. He spoke of measures for control of a number of epidemic diseases but said nothing of VD.