When medical research yields new lifesaving therapies, too often they are complex, eA'Pen sive and inaccessible to many people. Oral rehydration therapy (ORT) is a fine exception to that rule. It is an uncom plicated, low-cost and easily obtainable antidote to a major scourge: the dehy dration that accompanies diarrhea. A patient is simply fed an electrolyte solu tion to replace fluid and vital ions lost through the bowel. In an added boon, recent study has found virtue in a num ber of different simple formulations, NORBERT HIRSCHHORN and WILLIAM B. GREENOUGH III met in 1964 in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Hirschhorn, an MD and a poet, is vice president of John Snow, Inc., a consulting firm in public health. He has been a research· er, teacher and program consultant in child health in many countries. In 1990 he won the Charles A. Dana Award for advancing the development and use of oral rehydration therapy. Greenough, an MD and long-distance runner, is professor of medicine and internation al health at Johns Hopkins University. He has directed the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangla desh, in Dhaka, conducting investiga tions there for 11 of the past 27 years. He is now focusing on improving the health of the elderly in the US, who like youngsters in the developing nations are at particular risk of dying from diar rhea, malnutrition or infection.