469 



side of these substances and point out that many of these same products 

 are also potentially useful pharmaceutical ag'ents. 



They are agents that may have application, rather broad applica- 

 tion to various aspects of industry. We find that some of these mate- 

 rials are antibiotic in nature, some have antiviral properties, some are 

 fungicidal and are believed to be potentially useful in trying to treat 

 some of our more serious systemic fungal infections. 



We find that some of these materials have general effects. Some of 

 them are psychopharmacological agents affecting the mind. Some of 

 these drugs may be useful in the future in treating mental disorders. 

 We have found antitumor effects, and today we see the National Can- 

 cer Institute, for example, beginning to screen some of these com- 

 pounds in search of antitumor agents. 



However, in entering this field of research we find that we do not 

 ha\'e at the present time the necessary governmental framework to 

 really get into this subject in depth. 



I would like to show you one other film and in the meantime while 

 we are preparing to do this I would like to pass around these photo 

 transparencies that will show you what happens when some of these 

 poisons are injected. 



These are photos of two corpses. One is the photograph of the arm 

 of a 4-year-old child that was stung by a sea wasp. This particular 

 creature is a jellyfish scientifically known as Chironex fiecheri. 



It is believed to be the most deadly venomous organism that lives in 

 the sea. The father was holding this child in approximately 3 feet of 

 water and trying to teach the little boy to swim. The child suddenly 

 cried out in extreme pain. 



The father rushed the child over to the beach and started to apply 

 sand in order to brush off the tentacles of the jellyfish; the child died 

 about 35 minutes later. 



The corpse of the 10-year-old boy was a boy that was stung in the 

 same geographical area, and I am talking about the area of Cairns in 

 northeast Australia. He was swimming and he died within about 10 

 minutes from the same species of jellyfish. 



These are very dramatic examples of many different types of sting- 

 ing organisms that we have ; at the present time we still do not know 

 anything about either the chemistry or the pharmacology of the poi- 

 sons, nor do we have any basic information on the ecology, in other 

 words, the environmental relationships, under which conditions these 

 organisms appear, and when, where, and how you are likely to en- 

 counter them. 



I want to point out to this committee that I think that this informa- 

 tion is very pertinent as we begin to pursue our man-in-the-sea pro- 

 gram. When we begin to discuss our global capabilities of this program 

 we may have ever so much information on closed ecological systems, as 

 to how you maintain a man in diving gear or a submarine at a certain 

 depth, but when you begin to talk about environmental operations you 

 are talking about something else, because, in this instance, we do not 

 have controlled environmental conditions. I think that this points up 

 some very pertinent problems and deficiencies in our present 

 knowledge. 



In this next film we are dealing with Minamata disease. This is still 

 another aspect of the overall field of biomedical oceanography. 



