LYMPH COMPOUND R-H AND ORCHITIC FLUID TABLETS
A physician wrote The Journal:
“I have under my care a patient with chronic parenchymatous nephritis. Microscopic examination shows occasional epithelial casts, with hyaline and granular casts. The patient feels well and appears to enjoy the best of health. Please give me your opinion on the use, in such a case, of the lymph injections put out by the Animal Therapy Company of Chicago, from whom I have just received a supply of literature.”
The Journal replied as follows:
“The Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry took up for consideration the ‘Lymph Compound R-H,’ and ‘Orchitic Fluid Tablets,’ sold by the Animal Therapy Company and refused them recognition.
“The treatment of a case of chronic parenchymatous nephritis is a task requiring the best judgment and the greatest knowledge that the physician can command. From the first his aim should be to do no harm, and with this in view he will recognize that since we do not know the cause of this disease, and since we are unable to influence the essential process in the kidney, the administration of a remedy capable of doing harm should be undertaken only under the clearest indications. It is probable that the remedy proposed, containing, it is asserted, a mixture of foreign proteins, might injure healthy kidneys, to say nothing of sick ones. It is well known that foreign proteins, such as the white of egg, if they enter the circulation unchanged, are excreted by the kidney and are liable to produce serious irritation, which in the case of parenchymatous nephritis might easily aggravate the existing condition and frustrate all other efforts at a cure. More especially is it imperative to do no harm when, as in the case reported by our correspondent, the patient appears to be in good health. Two questions should be raised in that case. First, is there any evidence that the occasional excretion of a few casts, whatever may be their variety, is actually doing the patient any harm? And second, since there are no symptoms, what possible improvement could be expected from treatment? It is admitted that we have no remedy which can affect an essential change in the condition of the diseased kidney. What must be done in such a case is to spare the kidney—to require of it the minimum of functional activity. In such a case, the physician who introduces an animal protein, foreign to the human system, would be taking a serious responsibility. The chances are that it would do harm; how great, no one can tell. If the physician can really make up his mind to experiment at the risk of the life of his patient, this case appears to be one unusually favorable to the manufacturer of the serum. There are chances that the diagnosis may be incorrect and that such a condition of the urine does not indicate a serious condition of the kidney. It is frequently the case after an acute infection, or some similar irritation, that the kidney continues for some time to excrete albumin and casts, but the condition eventually clears up. In such a case, if the serum did no harm it would be given the credit of curing the patient, who recovers in spite of it. It is a little unfortunate, however, for the purpose of such demonstration that the patient is said to feel well. If only he could be persuaded that he has a serious disease so that he might be somewhat depressed mentally, the effect of the cure would be more remarkable!
“If the physician to whom such a patient comes for advice, instead of taking the wise course of seeking reliable information, were to take at their face value the statements of interested commercial manufacturers—if he were to administer this unknown and dangerous remedy, the effects of which he cannot predict—he would commit a breach of trust more culpable than the most vicious attempts of the nostrum-maker to mislead the physician and the public.”—(From the Journal A. M. A., Dec. 14, 1912.)