“AUTO-HEMIC SERUM”
A Cure for Laziness, Ugliness, Frigidity and Many Other Things
The following letters are typical of many that have been received asking for information regarding Dr. L. D. Rogers and his “Auto-Hemic Serum.” This from a physician in New York state:
“Can you give me any information in reference to Dr. Rogers of Chicago, Ill., who has an Auto-Hemic Institute?”
And this from Kansas:
“Just received a letter from a Dr. L. D. Rogers, 2812 North Clark St., who is anxious to sell me a course in ‘Auto-Hemic Therapy.’ Would you kindly inform me what he has to sell? He did not tell me what it consisted of; am inclined to believe it is a rank fake. Kindly let me know what The Journal thinks about it. Just what is it? In the letter they claim that it is practically a panacea for every blood disease.”
This from Maine:
“What is Auto-Hemic Therapy? I have a handsome red and yellow circular from the Ideal Life Extension Press, 2812 North Clark St., Chicago, soliciting subscriptions to their publication, offering as a bonus this book, ‘Auto-Hemic Therapy’ by L. D. Rogers, A.M., M.D., LL.D., Chicago, and membership in the American Medical Union.”
THE NATIONAL MEDICAL UNIVERSITY
In order better to appreciate the probable scientific status of “Auto-Hemic Serum,” it is well briefly to sketch some of the previous activities of its discoverer, Dr. L. D. Rogers. For many years Rogers was the head and chief owner of the National Medical University of Chicago, a low-grade school of the “sun-down” variety. The “university” is now out of existence and for some time before it went out of existence was not recognized either by the board of health of the state in which it operated or by the boards of the majority of the other states in the Union. The report of the Carnegie Foundation on medical education had this to say about the laboratory facilities of Rogers’ school:
“The school occupies a badly lighted building, containing nothing that can be dignified by the name of equipment. There has been no dissecting thus far (October to the middle of April, 1909), anatomy being didactically taught. Persistent inquiry for the ‘dissecting-room’ was, however, finally rewarded by the sight of a dirty, unused, and almost inaccessible room containing a putrid corpse, several of the members of which had been hacked off. There is a large room called the chemical laboratory, its equipment ‘locked up,’ the tables spotless. ‘About ten’ oil-immersion microscopes are claimed—also ‘locked up in the storeroom.’ There is not even a pretense of anything else. Classes in session were all taking dictation.”
Dr. Rogers is, or was, if he is not still, “Permanent Secretary” of the “National Association of Panpathic Physicians”—whatever that is. In fact, one of Dr. Rogers’ specialties seems to be the founding of quasimedical organizations—organizations, apparently, which may prove useful in the promulgation of such projects as he may, at the time, be interested in. A few years ago, Rogers was exploiting a “cancer serum” and, presto, the “American Cancer Research Society” came into being, L. D. Rogers, president. Soon thereafter certain members of the profession were circularized urging them to purchase shares in the “Cancer Research Laboratory and Hospital,” par value $10. Apparently, the profession did not invest.
A few years ago, also, L. D. Rogers’ name appeared on the “Faculty” list of the “American Post-Graduate School,” a concern which granted—on the mail-order plan—a long line of sonorous degrees and an equally complete line of ornate diplomas.
THE JAPANESE CONSUMPTION CURE
Then, in 1915, there appeared in the classified columns of certain newspapers the following advertisement:
TUBERCULOSIS—New Japanese treatment; to prove merits and give discovery quick publicity will send 10 days’ treatment free.
DR. ROGERS, 546 Surf St., Chicago.
So far as we have been able to learn, Rogers, for some unexplained reason, did not call into existence out of the vastly deep a “Japanese-American Tuberculosis Research Society.” This consumption cure apparently died of inanition.
Then came the “Auto-Hemic Serum” with its inevitable sequel, the “National Society of Auto-Hemic Practitioners.” Another adjunct to the serum exploitation is the North American Journal of Homeopathy, the official organ of the “Auto-Hemic Practitioners” and of the “American Medical Union” and possibly of some other “societies”—but not representative of homeopathy!
WHAT IS AUTO-HEMIC THERAPY
What is this new therapy? According to a very lurid poster, it is described as “The Missing Link in Medicine”—possibly referring to the ease with which one may make monkeys of certain physicians. More specifically, although still vaguely, we learn:
“It consists in giving the patient a solution made by attenuating, hemolizing, incubating and potenizing a few drops of his or her own blood, and administering it according to a refined technic developed by the author.”
Elsewhere it is said to consist:
“... in taking five drops (or some multiple of five) of blood from a vein and putting it into nineteen times as much sterilized, distilled water, and incubating it at fever temperature for twenty-four hours, and then making further dilutions according to the needs of the case, as can be determined only by a physician skilled in its use.”
Neither of these statements, of course, describes the “refined technic” of those “skilled in its use,” but those who are interested can, by sending Dr. L. D. Rogers, “One Hundred Dollars cash-in-advance” get a mail-order course in this new marvel.
But if it is rather expensive to learn just how to use “Auto-Hemic Serum,” it does not cost so much to learn what the “serum” will do. Rogers has written a book on the subject, “Auto-Hemic Therapy,” which is used as a premium for subscriptions to the North American Journal of Homeopathy, price $5.00 per year, payable in advance. In the book Dr. Rogers modestly assures his readers that he considers his discovery more important than that of Alexis Carrel, winner of a Nobel Prize.
A CURE FOR LAZINESS
One of the chief virtues claimed for this serum is that of developing in the patient who takes it an unbounded energy that, apparently, makes him want to work himself to death. In some sensational articles that have appeared in Sunday editions of newspapers on Rogers’ serum, the stuff has been described as “Lazy Serum.” One of the first cases described in the Rogers book is that of a young waiter, “a good-for-nothing lazy fellow who would not work and would not pay for medical services” and who was turned over to Dr. Rogers’ free clinic. He was given the serum on Thursday and was told to report Saturday. He did not return until Monday, his excuse being that “he worked all day Saturday until midnight and all day Sunday and felt as if he could work all day and all night without rest.” The “case report” ends:
“... finally remarking, ‘I feel like a bird’ he flew out of the classroom and we never saw him again.”
HOUSEWIVES TAKE NOTICE
The next case described is that of a servant girl who had not worked for a year; within a week after taking the “Auto-Hemic Serum,” “she voluntarily beat carpets till she blistered her hands.” Then there was the rooming house keeper who had spent more than half of each day in bed. After an “Auto-Hemic” injection she “discharged her maid and janitor ... and did all the work of her twelve room house herself, beating rugs, firing furnace and carrying out ashes besides doing some of the laundry.” “Case No. 7176” is interesting: A man, generally considered the laziest person in his community and with a habit of “drinking thirty whiskies a day,” took “Auto-Hemic Serum.” He stopped drinking, shaved himself and changed from “a “bum” to that of a sober, clean, wholesome, bright and honest workman.” Then there was the case of the “lady physician” who “took the serum one evening and the next morning reported that she had the ‘giggles’ all day”; also she became “more magnetic.” More remarkable still was the case of the young woman clerk in a retail store who, after taking the serum, “astonished her employer by volunteering to work overtime.” In the chapter dealing with “Ills Peculiar to Women” Dr. Rogers details the moving story of a man to whom the “serum” was given and who reported that “about the third twenty-four hours after taking it his bowels moved forty times”—nevertheless, “he felt no exhaustion.”
In all phases of human activity the serum seems to work wonders. “The cases are numerous in which the frigidity of both sexes have [sic] melted after Auto-Hemic treatment.” A young married woman with a morbid dislike for her husband took the serum and within a week “became normal.” The discoverer suggests that in some cases there is no doubt that this serum “would prevent divorce.” A 40 year old woman who could not endure to wear any waists but white or black was able, it seems, after taking the serum to tolerate a veritable Jacob’s coat.
Is, then, “Auto-Hemic Serum” good for everything? Let Dr. Rogers answer:
“Briefly stated, without any great exaggeration, this new modified serum treatment is good for anything that is the matter with you, provided the cause is not organic, mechanical or bacterial.”
One infers that in the inorganic, mental, spiritual and nonbacterial spheres the stuff is supreme. But it has its limitations. For instance, Dr. Rogers states that he once had “a very troublesome cough which lasted several weeks, but did not yield to this serum.” Reaching the conclusion that some other treatment was necessary “he had the bones of his neck ‘adjusted’ and got immediate relief.”
AS A COMPLEXION BEAUTIFIER
The serum “cannot be made up by the barrel and sold at wholesale or retail”:
“If it could be bottled and stored and sold at retail like a patent medicine, the demand for it as a complexion beautifier alone would net the proprietor millions. More than one person a few days after taking the treatment has been wrongly accused of painting.”
Should any of The Journal readers decide to take the $100 mail-order course in “Auto-Hemic Therapy” he should realize that even after he has done so there are certain restrictions in the practice of this “therapy.” In no case must he administer “a course of Auto-Hemic Treatment” for “less than $100, paid in advance.” The only exceptions to this rule are “cases of absolute charity, expectant mothers and to persons positively unable to pay that amount.” Furthermore, Dr. Rogers says that for the reputation of his method, as well as for the good of all concerned, “I insist that the entire fee be paid in advance and that the course extend over a period of one year whether the patient needs few or many treatments.”
DOLLARS AND CENTS
For those who do not wish to take the mail-order course, Rogers offers to prepare individual specimens of the “serum” from blood that is sent to him by the physician. The cost of this “serum” is $5.00, “in advance,” of course.
Still emphasizing the commercial side, “Auto-Hemic Therapy” is especially recommended to “the general practitioner growing old and the physician who is ambitious to build up a creditable and lucrative practice” because “the health of four people out of five (old or young, whether they consider themselves sick or well) taken at random can be improved by this method of treatment”! An Ohio physician was said to have doubled his $3,000 practice in two years after starting the “Auto-Hemic” method. A Virginia physician is alleged to have “increased his income $10,000 a year.” A Pennsylvania physician urged by Rogers to send $150.00 for the mail-order course, was assured that this “is merely a nominal amount, as most of the doctors have been able to get this amount back the first month.”
But enough. The story, were it not for the tragic element that forms the background, would be amusing. But it is tragic!—(From The Journal A.M.A., Feb. 14, 1920.)