A powerful preventive against pneumonia, influenza and other respiratory diseases may be promised by a brilliant series of experiments conducted during the last three years at the University of Chicago's Billings Hospital. Dr. Oswald Hope Robertson last week was making final tests with a new germicidal vaporpropylene glycolto sterilize air. If the results so far obtained are confirmed, one of the age-old searches of man will finally achieve its goal.

The idea of sterilizing the air is not new London's great fire of 1666, for example, was touched off by the countless fires which...