with mitral stenosis and insufficiency was substantiated.
At the time of examination,
the boy was fully active without evidence of decompensation.
On May 13, 1956, a 46-vear-old Rongelap man (#25) died suddenly after an illness of about one hour.
He had been quite well except for two short illnesses occur-
ring a year ago and four months ago characterized by pyrexia (102 to 104°F), head-
aches and bodyaches, general malaise, and slight cough. In addition, he had complained occasionally of vague abdominal pain but there were no associated physical
findings. Previous physical examinations had been essentially negative except for
hypertension (BP 148/104) which was present on the first examination two years ago,
a few days after radiation exposure, and which no doubt antedated the exposure. The
present illness was characterized by acute onset of dyspnea with complaint of abdominal pain,
The health aide observed that his abdomen was boardlike.
He died be-
fore he could be brought to the hospital and autopsy was delayed until about 20 hours
after death because of religious rites.* The heart was reported to be enlarged with
pericardial effusion and the presence of vegetations on the mitral valve. There was
pulmonary and hepatic congestion and what appeared to be a fatty degeneration of the
pancreas, Tissues were sent to Brookhaven National Laboratory for histological
evaluation. Unfortunately the tissues were poorly fixed; autolysis had occurred in
most specimens because of the length of time elapsing between death and autopsy, and
the use of insufficient fixative. A summary of the histopathological findings follows:**
The sections examined microscopically indicated that the patient had benign nephrosclerosis (hypertension) with myocardial hypertrophy (presumably, left), Coronary
artery arteriosclerosis was present, Evidences of heart failure were noted in the
presence of recent pulmonary edema and passive congestion, acute, of liver and
spleen. No evidence of rheumatic heart disease, acute or inactive, was noted and no
valvular vegetations were observed, The specimen of pancreas was autolyzed,
Growth and Development
Heights and weights based on sex and age were compared in exposed and control
children (19 years of age and younger), using the data taken in the six-month and
two-year surveys. Unfortunately only nine children of each sex could be matched with
the controls, since not all the control children were available for re-examination.
Nine males between the ages of 3 and 15 years and nine females between the ages of
5 and 19 were compared.
When there were several children of the same age, the
means for each age were used to calculate the over-all mean differences for the total
group. The mean differences in height and weight of the exposed children compared
to the controls were as follows:
Males
Females
6-mo
2-yr
6-mo
2-yr
survey
survey
survey
survey
Height, in.
-2,1
-2.1
-0.1
-0,5
Weight, lb
-6.5
-7.2
+2.0
-0,2
Even though slight differences were noted between the irradiated and control children,
it is not possible to attach any significance to these differences because of the small
*Dr. A. Hicking in charge of the Marshall islands Memorial Hospital performed the autopsy.
**The histopathological findings are those of Dr. S.W.
Lippincott of Brookhaven National Laboratory.