Word: magic
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Japan. New to politics, this flamboyant sect first made its mark in the April municipal elections when 337 of its 362 candidates were elected to office. Founder Tsunesaburo Makiguchi believed that mankind's salvation lay in the teachings of the Buddhist saint Nichiren* By merely chanting the magic formula, "Namu My oho Rengekyo [I devote myself to the Scripture of the Lotus of the Wonderful Law]," a believer not only freshens his mind but is able to endure and overcome sickness, misfortune, poverty and unhappiness...
Chanting Police. Its methods of recruitment are novel: believers go in relays to the house of a hoped-for convert and, day and night, chant the magic formula. Irate neighbors frequently call the police but are sometimes flabbergasted to find that the policemen often belong to Soka Gakkai too, and join their voices to the chanting. Often the unfortunate target will give up and become a member of Soka Gakkai just to get some sleep...
...Checking an old wives' brew used in Shropshire to bolster failing hearts, William Withering found in 1775 that the active ingredient came from the common foxglove, thus stumbled upon digitalis-still a sovereign remedy. Only 28 years ago, Western-trained physicians in India concluded that there was more magic than myth in ancient snakeroot remedies for high blood pressure and some emotional disturbances, pointed the way to the isolation of reserpine-now flourishing as a multimillion-dollar prescription item. Ephedrine, which was isolated only in 1885, and is valuable in treating asthma, was the active ingredient in Ma Huang...
...Skelton, George Gobel, Jimmy Durante and, for the past twelve years, Jack Paar. Although Paar has announced that Douglas will be dropped when his contract runs out this month ("You have misused me and your expense account"), Jack has plugged the book, which was also aided by the flack magic of Manhattan Pressagent David Green. Result: last week a lot of people were being tickled by such blunt, Douglas-made instruments as a "sleeping-pill-of-the-month club," John Huston smoking a lizard, a law that "forbids the transportation of trained female seals over the state line for immoral...
Within the College, as elsewhere, Federal aid is rapidly gaining the status of a magic word. Surrounded by a climate of "liberalism," most Harvard undergraduates seem ready to accept increased Federal activity in almost any area of national life--from schoolrooms to hospitals, from housing developments to theatres, and from farms to factories...