Japanese Doctor Proved 30-Minute Kiss Lightens Allergic Reaction

There are two kinds of Nobel Prize - one dead serious and the other cool and witty. Today's episode has to do with the latter - the one that's cool and witty enough.

Japan's physician Hajime Kimata, 62, was awarded this Year's Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine for his revelation of the effect of a 30 minute kiss to lighten allergic reaction, September 11 at Harvard University, Boston. The award was shared with the Czech team for their own study on kiss. Dr. Kimata participated the prize-awarding ceremony with a recorded videotape in which he said he had intended to activate the healing power of nature to control allergic reaction.

Dr. Kimata runs an Allergy Clinic in Neyagawa, Osaka and had engaged several tens each of atopic dermatitis and cedar pollen patients to carry on kissing their lovers or spouses for thirty minutes. The results showed, according to Dr. Kimata, kissing had considerably lightened allergic reaction to mites and cedar pollen.

This year a study on the urinary excretion of mammals being uniform regardless of body size was awarded the prize in Physics and the one how to restore part of a boiled egg to its original state the prize in Chemistry.

Japan has made a monopoly of the Ig Nobel Prize for nine consecutive years. Last year, a team of researchers at Kitasato University was awarded the prize in Physics for a study on the slipperiness of banana peels.

The founder of the Ig Nobel Prize Mr. Marc Abrahams, 59, gave a lecture earlier on June 28 in Tokyo, in which he told his audience that laughable studies could lead to new discoveries. He turned the entire hall a pot of pleasant laughter when he actually had a man slip over a banana peel dropped on the floor.