"A Controlled Study"

To the Editor:— Mainwaring and Brueckener subtitled their article on fibrinogen-transmitted hepatitis A Controlled Study (195:437, 1966). Perhaps I am being a bit overly critical, but it seems to be stretching a point to say that this is I presume the authors meant comparing the incidence of hepatitis in their nine fibrinogen-treated patients to the incidence in the 6,620 patients given whole blood over the same period of time. This sort of comparison is frequently resorted to and obviously has some merit. I don't doubt the validity of their conclusion that the incidence of hepatitis is much greater after fibrinogen than after whole blood. However, it does not seem cricket to whet the reader's appetite by including in the title the come-on phrase controlled study when the method used is not really rigidly controlled. This most certainly wasn't. I feel let down by the overstatement and I