Rest and Exercise in Hepatitis

The paper on the role of rest in the treatment of infectious hepatitis by Repsher and Freebern in this week's Journal confirms the conclusions of a previous study among military personnel,1 except that in comparing ad-lib rest with vigorous daily exercise, it starts where the earlier study left off. During the Korean conflict patients on strict bed rest were found to improve no faster than those allowed ad-lib rest. Because the latter treatment was so contrary to the current beliefs of experts in liver disease, the investigators hedged by requiring the experimental group to stay on the hospital ward and . . .