PEANUT OIL USED IN A NEW VACCINE; Product Patented for Merck Said to Extend Immunity

WASHINGTON, Sept. 18—A pharmaceutical manufacturer has developed a vaccine that it predicts will considerably lengthen immunity from influenza and other virus infections, thereby requiring fewer “shots.”

The key ingredient, called Adjuvant 65, which contains peanut oil, was patented this week for Merck & Co., Inc., by Dr. Allen F. Woodhour and Dr. Thomas B. Stim. They, discovered it in the company's research laboratory at West Point, Pa.

Present procedure, according to Merck, is to give annual injections of killed influenza virus, which are expected to afford protection for a year. The hope is that the new vaccine will extend the immunity to at least two years and be more effective during that period.

The current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine reports favorably on studies in which 880 persons received killed influenza virus in Adjuvant 65.

The new vaccine is still under study and is not yet licensed for general use.

Adjuvant slowly releases antigens, the active ingredients of vaccines, which stimulate the creation of antibodies in the human system over an extended period, Merck said.

Adjuvant is an emulsion of refined. peanut oil in water to which are added an emulsifier and a stabilizer.

As the company explains it, the antigens are contained in small particles of water, which are surrounded by the oil. When injected into the body, the emulsion is distributed along the muscle fibers. The antigens are released as the peanut oil is absorbed by the body's tissues.

The research on Adjuvant covered six years and represented the collaboration of several departments of the Merck Institute for Therapeutic Research and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Dr. Woodhour is assistant director of the department of virus diseases in the Merck laboratories. Dr. Stim is now a research associate at Yale Univer sity. Their patent is No. 3,149,036.

A process for removing radioactive Iodine from milk, if fall out or a nuclear accident should make that necessary, was patented this week for the Atomic Energy Commission.

The patentees are Gopala K. Murthy, Jeptha E. Campbell Jr. and James E. Gilchrist, specialists for the United States Public Health Service in Cincinnati. According to the patent (3,148,989), the process will get rid of the radio‐isotope iodine131, which is particularly harmful to infants, without changing the composition, flavor, odor or appearance of the milk. The decontaminating is done with an ion‐exchange resin available commercially.

Before use, the resin is loaded with heavier concentrations of chloride, phosphate and citrate salts than exist naturally in the milk. After the iodine is removed, however, these materials are found in the milk in their original proportions.

In 1962, Mr. Murthy, Mr. Campbell and two associates patented a method of removing strontium-90 from milk.

New water skis, invented and manufactured at Cyprus Gardens, Fla., have been specially designed to withstand the strains they must undergo when used for jumping.

The jumper, towed behind a motor boat, travels at high speed up a ramp and lands on the water with great impact.

William N. Bennett, a professional skier, obtained Patent 3,148,392 this week for Cyprus Gardens Skis, Inc. The patent includes drawings based on high‐speed research films.

The jumping ski is made in an electronic press from five layers of laminated wood. It has a slight lengthwise curve and the tip rises to conform to the ramp angle.

To improve steering and balance, Mr. Bennett has made the edges sharp and has attached a pair of fins, rather than a single fin, under the heel end of each ski.

The Seismograph Service Corporation of Tulsa, Okla., received a patent this week for a voting‐machine ballot box that automatically seals itself. The box fits in voting machines of the kind with which ballot cards or papers are used.

After the voting, when the panel giving access to the box is opened, the box lid moves to a closed position and a distinctive seal is affixed.

To preserve secrecy, the ballots drop alternately into two compartments of the box. Guilbert M. Hunt says in Patent 3,148,827 that this makes it impossible to determine how a person voted by referring to the order in which he executed his ballot.

A submarine patented for the Electric Boat division of the General Dynamics Corporation, Groton, Conn., is designed to descend vertically, nose first. The access hatch is in the stern.

The crew and their instruments are to stay on a weighted platform in the vessel. The platform, according to Patent 3,148,650, moves like a pendulum and tends to remain horizontal.

The inventor, John S. Leonard, has provided for a drive system to tip the platform in relation to the hull. In this way, the vessel's angle or pitch can be controlled.

The submarine, which was designed to serve as an inexpensive tool for oceanographic research, has never been built and remains only a concept.

August Valfells of Reykjavik, Iceland, was granted a patent this week for a new method of converting atomic energy into electricity.

The inventor notes that any conductor moved through a magnetic field generates electricity. As the conductor in his system, he uses a stream of gas that has been ionized by nuclear fission.

In an example given in Patent 3,149,248, uranium-235 tetrafluoride gas is mixed with uranium tri‐iodide gas and fed into a fission chamber. The expanding gases pass through a magnetic field between electrodes, which draw off the current. The gases are then cooled, the fission products are removed, and the uranium isotope is replenished before recycling.

Nadina Billi of Astoria, Queens, is inventor of a trap for bank bandits. The cashier presses a button to drop a bulletproof shield in front of him and a metal net around the holdup man.

The mechanism, as described in patent 3,148,640, also sounds an alarm and automatically expels tear gas inside the net.

Patent Office records rarely show whether an invention is in production. To get a copy of a patent, send the number and 25 cents to the Commissioner of Patents, Washington, D. C: Design patents are 10 cents each. To reach an inventer or an assignee if the address is given is insufficient, write him in care of the Commissioner of patents, being sure to cite the patent number.