NEW AID TO FITTING A GAUZE MASK

To the Editor:—  A problem sometimes confronting operating room personnel is the "steaming up" of eyeglasses. Difficulties arise for persons who have high-bridged noses when the relative humidity in the room is high, either because of the climatic conditions or because a sterilizer is discharging steam into the room. Various glass-coating soaps and waxes cause disappointment, since their protection is incomplete and temporary, breaking down with high humidities and in the middle of long operations. The difficulty is met satisfactorily by a mask bearing a strip of lead or aluminum molded to the bridge of the nose. A special mask is needed that has a cloth channel for receiving the metal strip. The deep openings lateral to a high-bridged nose are thereby sufficiently closed so that expiration occurs, as it should, through the meshes of the mask. This presupposes proper adjustment and tightening, of course.There is some advantage in