Hero to nitpickers everywhere

After dealing with an epidemic of head lice at a New Haven day-care center, Sydney Z. Spiesel, M.D. ’75, Ph.D., assistant clinical professor of pediatrics, came up with a shampoo that makes the louse eggs, or nits, visible under ultraviolet light. The shampoo contains a nontoxic fluorescent dye that causes the nits to glow brightly on the hairshaft when viewed under ultraviolet light. Spiesel, whose invention landed him on the pages of The New York Times, the local press and Time magazine, said that his shampoo will not kill the eggs, but it makes them easy to see and eliminate.