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A simple method is described for determining the uric acid: creatinine ratio (UA/C ratio) in urine collected on filter paper. Uric acid and creatinine can be eluted quantitatively from Schleicher and Schuell 903 filter paper in alkaline buffer; the eluate is analyzed for the two compounds simultaneously by an automated method. The mean UA/C ratio was defined in 820 newborn infants in the postnatal period of life. After the third day, the average is 1.49 ± 0.60 (mean ± 1SD), falling from a high value of 2.25 ± 0.85 on the second day. There is no significant sex difference or diurnal variation at this age and neither gestational age nor birth weight apparently affects the ratio. The technique can be used to screen population, particularly the neonate after the 3rd day of life, for disorders of purine metabolism. An abnormal ratio (i.e., above 3.29 or > 3SD above the mean) would indicate such a disorder. Transient high UA/C ratios can be anticipated in at least 0.5% of samples often because of acquired perinatal complications.

AT THE first meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics in 1931, a committee was established to explore the possibility of Board certification. After consultation with representatives of the national societies then in existence, the American Board of Pediatrics was incorporated in 1933. The purpose was to certify a man as a specialist in the practice of pediatrics and an early decision was that the qualifications should be set up by the men practicing in the field. It is of interest that other suggestions such as separate state qualifying boards, certification by the National Board of Medical Examiners, or certification by a board run by the medical schools were all rejected. The decision was made that the Board be formed by appointment of three men by each of the prominent pediatric groups of the time, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Section on Pediatrics of the American Medical Association, and the American Pediatric Society. Once appointed, the Board members would not be responsible to the appointing societies. After discussion by the three societies, the Board was formed. Dr. Borden Veeder, to whom I am indebted for some of this background, was the first president, Dr. Henry Helmholz, vice president, and Dr. C. Anderson Aldrich, secretary. Because of the need for more help in the actual examinations, the Board appointed additional interested pediatricians as official examiners. In general, succeeding appointments to the Board were made from this latter group. In 1960, the charter and by-laws were modified to spell out the method of appointment so that at present the term of appointment is six years. After the lapse of one year a man may be appointed for one more term.

I would like to comment on several points made in the FDA position paper. It is our understanding that the death from staphylococcal disease which occurred in Florida was that of an infant who was not bathed with hexachlorophene. As a matter of fact, in that hospital there was marked conflict among the staff. Some had their babies bathed with hexachlorophene and others did not. The staff members themselves did not know which infants were or were not bathed with hexachlorophene in that particular nursery nor the manner in which they were bathed. However, I think that one thing is quite obvious and that is that there was a definite break in the nursery routine from a position of having all the babies bathed with hexachlorophene to a haphazard bathing with a resultant rise in staphylococcal disease. I think the FDA's allusion to neuropathological changes in autopsy material from California have been adequately answered by Dr. Davis' studies which were presented at this meeting. I do think that a false impression is left with the reader if he only reads FDA's comments about this study in California. It is interesting to note that there were two representatives from the University of Cincinnati present at the conference and neither one of them mentioned any study about neuropathological changes in infants at the University of Cincinnati. However, obviously something was communicated to the FDA but I find it strange that no mention was made of the study during the discussion of neuropathology at the conference

Idle curiosity and a ruler were used to identify the amount of white, unused paper (WUP) in the March 1974 issue of Pediatrics. WUP was approximately 91 inches. This is equivalent to 9.6 wasted pages or 7.1% of the total page content in this issue. Over a one-year period this will amount to about 115 pages of WUP or roughly an entire issue of Pediatrics. One possible solution to the WUP problem—the recruitment and insertion of good brief papers—is suggested.

Those readers who tend to be titillated into reading articles whose titles include such eye-catching phrases as "a simple method" may well, at first, be disappointed in the contribution of Lister et al. elsewhere in this issue of Pediatrics. Surely, one feels appendices which assault our senses with such polysymbolic multiple equations as these must relate to a method more accurately described as formidable and, at best, academic-certainly not practical! Now, a paper clip is, indeed, simple in concept and design-its functional application is self-evident. Yet, the engineer's calculations and mechanical drawings of the machinery which enabled production of such a basic instrument of civilized living are, no doubt, a good deal more complicated than Listers' illustrations and appendices.

The article on "Appearance and Localization of a Nerve Growth-Promoting Protein during Development" by Winick and Greenberg, which appears elsewhere in this issue of PEDIA-rRICs, is one of a type which tends to bring fire into the eyes of those of our readers who feel that there is an improper balance between "scientific" and "clinical" papers in this journal. As one who has defended the thesis that PEDIATRICS should consciously serve its readers who are practitioners as well as those who are academicians, it seems worthwhile to comment briefly on the reasons for recommending publication of this article. First, I was favorably impressed by the merits of the manuscript from the purely editorial point of view

The editors of this text admit that the title is probably a misnomer, and it is. This is not a book about all the possible applications of behavior modification principles to the training and education of the wide range of retarded individuals. Nor does it attempt to review systematically the important studies which have been done in recent years. Rather, it describes a number of applications of operant techniques in a particular state institution for the retarded.

Wilhelm Frisell was an admiring student of William Mansfield Clark, who was a scholar capable of bringing to medical students and interested physicians some of the less familiar concepts of physical chemistry in an imaginative and appealing manner that did not do violence to the principles he was dealing with. In the present book, the author has greatly narrowed his scope to the field of acid-base chemistry. Starting from the assumption that his students have yet to be introduced to high school chemistry, he continues to write in this vein thereafter.

One of the hallmarks of man is his irrepressible desire to attain altered states of consciousness. For thousands of years, and in every culture, individuals of our species have sought ways to change, at least briefly and from time to time, the way it feels to be alive. Fermented spirits, hallucinogenic mushrooms and cactus, narcotics, betel nuts, tobacco and marihuana, tranquilizers, fasting, flagellation, meditation and prayer–the list of methods is a long one but the goals are not dissimilar.