ANTI-TUBERCULOUS LYMPH COMPOUND (SWEENY) AND ANTI-SYPHILITIC COMPOUND (SWEENY)

Report of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry

The Council has authorized publication of the reports which appear below, declaring Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound (Sweeny) and Anti-Syphilitic Compound (Sweeny) ineligible for New and Non­official Remedies.

W. A. Puckner, Secretary.

Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound (Sweeny)

“Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound (Sweeny)” is put out by the National Laboratories of Pittsburgh, Dr. Gilliford B. Sweeny, “Medical Director.” Sweeny has claimed at different times that he became interested in the subject of von Behring’s efforts to immunize cattle to tuberculosis at a time when he was an assistant in von Behring’s laboratory. He claims to have conceived the idea while there of transferring bovine immunity to tuberculosis to the human subject and later to have evolved his “treatment” at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.

Just how Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound is made today is not stated—at least so far as one is able to learn from recent advertising. Some years ago Sweeny declared that his “Anti-Tubercular Lymph” (as it was then called) was derived from a bullock which had been immunized to tuberculosis. Then:

“The immunized animal having been slaughtered, the contents of the lymph reservoirs are carefully collected and an aqueous extract is made from the grey cerebral substance, spinal cord and the lymph glands. It is then filtered under high pressure and de-albuminized by succussion. To this, the lymph, together with a definite proportion (50 per cent.), of the naturally phosphorized brain fats is added, with a small amount of chloride of gold (about 1-60 gr. to the dose), the latter as a preservative.”

It is a fair assumption that however the preparation may have been made originally, it is not now made in such a manner as to bring it under the federal laws governing the preparation of serums and similar preparations. The claims made for Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound are of the usual uncritical and unscientific type. Mainly, of course, they are of the testimonial class. The physician is told that the preparation has been carefully tested by men whose judgment is worthy of consideration; that the verdict has been altogether favorable to the “Compound.” Thus:

“... the remedy was submitted to a selected body of skilled physicians, recognized for their skill and care in making therapeutic observations. These men represented widely varying conditions, climatic and otherwise. Those who said ten years ago that Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound has a specific immunizing influence upon the tuberculosis patient, find the same to be true today.”

Careful reading of the matter just quoted will reveal its ambiguity and inherent lack of frankness. The inference conveyed is that the “selected body of skilled physicians” have unqualifiedly endorsed Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound (Sweeny)—but it does not say so!

It is the history of all such preparations, introduced to the medical profession with the usual blare of trumpets, that a certain number of favorable testimonials can be obtained. It is also the history of such products that one has but to wait a few years and the physicians who had written most enthusiastically regarding the preparation—in the first flush of their optimism following its use and the perusal of the manufacturers’ literature—will acknowledge that they were mistaken in their original estimate and are no longer using the agent. In this connection an investigation of some of the old testimonials for Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound by the Propaganda department of The Journal is instructive.

In a somewhat elaborate booklet published in 1907 by Sweeny, an Indiana physician was said to have reported favorable results following the administration of the “lymph.” A letter written to this physician in October, 1919, asking for his present opinion on the product brought this reply, in part:

“... it being twelve years since using the serum and no reference or repeated orders since should surely suffice as evidence of my lack of faith in the serum....”

An Illinois physician was reported in the same booklet to have described a case of a young man with an active tuberculosis, who was given injections of the “lymph” in February, 1907. The patient, it was claimed, showed immediate improvement and the Sweeny booklet (published in August, 1907) stated that “improvement in this case continued and terminated in complete recovery.” A letter written to the physician in October, 1919, brought out the fact that the young man in question, after receiving “Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound” and other treatment was removed “on a stretcher” “to New Mexico, where he remained for three or four years” and recovered. The doctor adds:

“I do not think that the Anti-Tuberculous Lymph had anything to do with the man’s recovery, although I realize the difficulty of definitely analyzing just what did effect the cure. I did since that time use that preparation in several other cases without beneficial results so that I gave it up a good many years ago adding it to that large heap of pharmaceutical material ‘weighed and found wanting.’ ”

A physician in Texas also reported in the 1907 booklet as having had very satisfactory results with the Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound in one case of pulmonary tuberculosis was written to in October, 1919. He replied:

“I will state that subsequent use of this compound did not bear out the apparent good results from its use in the first case or two.”

In a “Bulletin” issued by the Sweeny concern in 1912, a Pennsylvania physician was quoted as having treated three cases with Anti-Tuberculin Lymph Compound with resultant cures. This physician was written to in October, 1919, and he replied:

“I have no knowledge of the use of my name by any Pittsburgh concern and know nothing of a lymph of the name of Sweeny; neither do I recollect ever curing three cases of tuberculosis with any lymph.”

The same “Bulletin” quoted the alleged statement by a Delaware physician to the effect that he believed Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound to be the most successful treatment of tuberculosis extant. This in 1912. To an inquiry sent in October, 1919, this physician briefly replied:

“Am not using it now.”

The result of the Propaganda department’s questionnaire was what might have been expected. Every physician who answered the inquiry regarding his previous and present opinions of Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound (Sweeny) declared, in effect, that he had long since ceased to have faith in its value or efficacy.

According to claims made in Sweeny literature, “Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound exercises its immunizing power through a specific action upon the blood cells.” The statement that “it destroys the tuberculosis germ when this is present in the system of the patient” is untrue. The facts are, no serum or lymph has thus far been proved to have any value in the treatment of tuberculosis even when fortified by “a small proportion of chloride of gold and soda” as one circular tells us the “lymph” is. In spite of research by competent investigators, we are still without any aid in the form of a serum in the treatment of tuberculosis.

Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound (Sweeny) is one of those preparations that need no elaborate laboratory tests, nor even exact therapeutic research, to convince any clear-thinking person that it is patently and obviously worthless. One would hesitate before asking any reputable clinician to test a preparation of this sort. It is a constant source of surprise that some physicians allow themselves to be persuaded by advertising literature that is obviously uncritical and unscientific, to use preparations which have no more reasonable foundation than this one.

The Council declares Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound (Sweeny) not acceptable for New and Non­official Remedies.

Anti-Syphilitic Compound (Sweeny)

This preparation also is made by or under the direction of the same Dr. Gilliford B. Sweeny whose researches (?) led to the production and evolution of the Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound (Sweeny). According to the data at hand, this preparation is made by suspending benzoate of mercury in lymph from the bullock. Case reports are given of alleged cures of syphilis after two months of treatment; indeed, the circular exploiting the agent makes the statement that it is seldom necessary to continue the treatment beyond two months, which, if one chose to be credulous, would indicate extraordinary power for the mercury.

Mercury of course has a proper place in the treatment of syphilis, but that any physician could be induced to place his trust in this preparation is almost unthinkable though testimonials—which the “National Laboratories” claim to have received from physicians—are published. They all stamp the writers as not only gullible but also incompetent. The tenor of the claims is on a par with those made for the Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound; they do not justify the time required for detailed consideration.

The Council declares Anti-Syphilitic Lymph Compound (Sweeny) not acceptable for N. N. R.—(From The Journal A. M. A., April 3, 1920.)