Tranquilizers often cover up real sickness

              The tranquilizer pills millions of Americans . are popping into their mouths may    cover   up symptoms that need the attention of a physician or psychiatrist
A New Orleans psychiatrist and research specialist: in mental disturbance says tranquilizers—outside of hospitals or clinics— are only useful in temporary crises whose up­setting effects pass when the situation ends.
If mental stress and anxiety arise from long-standing habit patterns, says Louisiana State university's Dr. Charles Watkins, the pill consumer should consider getting help to unravel his problems.
Dr. Watkins is professor and head of the department of psychiatry at LSU medical school. Tranquilizer'Pointers          •         -  ...   ' • '..      ..     .
• He gives these pointers about tranquilizer drugs  and the difficulties they are supposed to combat:
1,   The current idea that everyone should feel tranquil is a fallacy,
* 'The things most of us put up with every day/' com­ments Dr. Watkins, "are frequently as nervewracking as a broken leg—if it isn't too bad a break/'                *           t
2.  Anxiety is just as useful a symptom as fever. It is an indication that something is wrong.
"If anxiety continues, you should try to find out what is causing it. Self-medication is not v;ery wise."
,3. Tranquilizers can deal with many symptoms of men­tal upset, but they don't "cure'1 the disturbance. Only a Crutch  '                       ..   ;v   -   ■    '           ,
4. While tranquilizing drugs are of great value in psy­chiatric  treatment—particularly  in  severe  mental  disturb- ' anee--they are only a crutch for neurotic individuals.
Dr. Watkins says tranquilizers have put psychiatry,-in its simpler forms, into the general  practitioner's office.
They have also done yeomen service in erasing the stigma psychiatric treatment used to carry* ,
A general practicioner or member of any medical spe­cialty now has a variety of tranquilizing drugs he can pre­scribe for anxiety symptoms, if he deems it wise.
These drugs fall into three common categories:
1.   Phenothiazines—-the  most  well  known  of  which  is chlorpromazine,
Chlorpromazine is one of the original "wonder drugs'* for mental disturbance. It was first used to combat vomit­ing in pregnancy.                                     - -     -                ,.
2.   Rauwolfia  derivatives—Pharmacological  refinements of the millema-old "snake root," used for more than 2000 years in India.                                                                  -
These drugs were first employed in modern medicine for alleviating high blood pressure. Affects'   Fewer Functions ;   ;
3.    The propanediols—Chiefly exemplified by meproba­mate. Meprobamate is a milder drug than the other two types, affecting fewer func|ions of the brain.
In the past few years, tranquilizers have become a household word. Their consumption has spread from ner­vous adults to family pets with frazzled dispositions or out* right neuroses.                                                    .
No recent tally on the consumption of tranquilizers is available.                                                .
But a congressional subcommittee investigating the advertising and sales promotion of tranquilizers two years ago reported that in 1957 Americans spent $300 million on these drugs, and that, every third prescription sold in the country contained tranquilizers.
Researchers, using the drugs, have boosted the  store of information about the once mysterious workings of the brain.         v Bundles of Tissue 
The brain is a single organ, but it is made up of bundles of tissue which activate, control or correlate aspects of consciousness, as well as dealing with "automatic" move­ments and body processes.
Tranquilizers act on one or more of these centers. In general, they tend to inhibit disturbing response to emot­ional stimuli.    -
The area and range of activity of tranquilizers is scientifically determined by electroencephalograph, a |le-vice for measuring electrical waves in the brain.
Tranquilizers differ in their effects ort brain centers,
Chlorpromazine, for example, slows down a center which alerts the intellectual seat of consciousness, and stimulates another brain circuit correlating intellectual and emotional aspects of consciousness.
Rauwolfia, acting differently but producing roughly sim­ilar results, stimulates the alerting center as well as the correlating: circult.
Chlorpromazine  and  Rauwolfia  act  alike  on  one  sec­tion of this  correlation  cir cult—they  produce   convulsions. Researchers think the seizures may interrupt pathologieaL thinking involving the   circuit. No Stimulating Effect
Meproborriate, on the other hand,  has no stimulating effect on any major brain center. It' acts  by depressing | botlr the alerting center of the brain and the center cor-; relating emotions and thoughts ......"
You can't buy any of these tranquilizers without a pre­scription.
Most of the, so-called tranquilizers sold over the counter contain methapyrilene—a mild sedative;
LSU's Dr. Watkins has high praise for the more potent and  clinically  effective  tranquilizers.
They produced a real revolution in psychotherapy,  he says, when they appeared in -the early 1950s as drugs that actually  could  reduce  tension  and  anxiety, I       But, he adds,  "there's very little evidence that these ! drugs have much effect on patterns of behavior or chronic personality problems."
"If an employe wrangles constantly with his boss,'' he