TEKARKIN
Edward Percy Robinson’s “Cure” for Cancer
From various parts of the country The Journal has received a sixteen page pamphlet, Therapeutic Leaves. The publication, which has a saffron colored cover, is said to be published by the National Bio-Chemical Laboratory, Mount Vernon, N. Y. The National Bio-Chemical Laboratory seems to be a style used by Dr. Edward Percy Robinson. The “editorial offices” of Therapeutic Leaves are given as “501 Knox Bldg., 5th Ave. at 40th St., New York,” which is a roundabout way of describing 452 Fifth Ave., the office address of Edward Percy Robinson. The first number (February, 1921) of Therapeutic Leaves gives the names of the “editors” as “E. P. Robinson, M.D., and W. A. Jenner, B.A.” In addition, there is “Assistant Editor, F. J. Geiger,” and “Gen’l Manager, Beverly K. Robinson.” The first and second numbers of Therapeutic Leaves (February and March, 1921) are practically identical, being evidently printed from the same plates. Therapeutic Leaves purports to be a periodical published as “a medium for the dissemination of knowledge, pertaining to therapeusis.” Actually, it is an advertising medium dealing with the products of the National Bio-Chemical Laboratory: “Osmo-Calcic Solution,” “Tekarkin” and “Osmotic Mangano-Potassic Solution.”
These preparations are said to be the “formulas” of Dr. Edward Percy Robinson who lives in Mt. Vernon, N. Y., and has an office at 452 Fifth Ave., New York City. They are used by Dr. Robinson in the treatment of cancer. At an earlier stage they seem to have been known under different names: “Tekarkin” was first “Hypotonic Sal-Cella” and then “Neoanabolin-X;” “Osmo-Calcic Solution” was “Osmotonic Calcic” while “Osmotic Mangano-Potassic Solution” was “Osmotonic Drops.” The three solutions are put up in one package containing 4 c.c. (about 65 minims) of “Tekarkin” and 1 ounce each of the other preparations. The package sells for $10.00. “Remittance with order ... We have no agents.”
Most of the material in Therapeutic Leaves is a rehash of four papers published by Edward Percy Robinson in the New York Medical Record of various dates between September, 1917, and July, 1920. In these Robinson advances the theory that cancer is caused by an excess of sodium chlorid (table salt) in the blood and tissues and that it can be cured by administering a solution of potassium nitrate. Such a treatment sounds ideally simple. One might assume that all that was necessary was to make up a solution of potassium nitrate and inject it. One might further wonder how it would be possible to commercialize such a “treatment.” “Homemade solutions,” says Dr. Robinson, “are apt to be disappointing.” Their use is likely to cause “considerable swelling at the site of an injection, accompanied with tenderness and some heat.” Moreover, “a wide hyperemic area with red blotches has been observed in a number of instances.” In order to avoid “accidents of this sort” which would “bring discredit upon an excellent agent,” Dr. Robinson, “after considerable experimental work” has obtained “a solution of this chemical which would meet the ideal requirements.” This is available under the name “Tekarkin.” Dilute potassium nitrate solution sold under the name “Tekarkin” sells for $67 an ounce. The physician can make his own solution, of the purest and highest grade potassium nitrate on the market, at an expense, for the chemical, not exceeding 5 cents an ounce.
Therapeutic Leaves also contains the usual number of those “clinical reports” which bulk so large in the literature of “cures” for cancer. Then there is a full page advertisement of a side-line of the National Bio-Chemical Laboratory: “Vitamines (Compressed) Tekarkin Brand;” “They have a meaty taste.”
The medical profession, naturally, is interested in knowing more about the physician who admits that he has discovered the cause and cure of cancer. According to our records, Edward Percy Robinson was born in 1871 and was graduated in 1897 by Bellevue Hospital Medical College. He was licensed in New York State the same year and has practiced in New York City continuously since that time. He is not, and apparently never has been, a member of his local medical society.
Reproduction (reduced) of some advertising matter issued in 1914 when Edward Percy Robinson was specializing in “facial contouring.”
In 1914 Robinson was specializing in “facial contouring.” One piece of advertising purports to be the reprint of an interview with “Dr. E. P. Robinson, Specialist, as he sat in his office at 116 West 39th Street, having questions fired at him by the reporter.” Thus Dr. Robinson:
“There are physicians everywhere who abandon the general, or family, practice of medicine, to devote their life to some specialty. My specialty is the improvement of the facial features and the beautifying of the shoulders, neck and arms. I round out hollow cheeks, build up the neck, eradicate wrinkles, make irregular noses perfect and remove defects by a process which is my own secret. I claim no superhuman power or ability; I have simply bent my whole professional study and energy to the one line of remodeling—so to speak—the human features, and I employ only scientific methods and aids in my operations.”
In another piece of advertising, a little booklet bearing Edward Percy Robinson’s name, we find the following:
“This is what I accomplish....
“Remove all wrinkles and traces of age from the forehead, or about the eyes and mouth. Lift sag from cheeks and chin.
“Round out hollow cheeks.
“Remove depressions and defects from the chin.
“Build up the neck and shoulders.
“Build up and enlarge the bust.
“Round out and give symmetry to unshapely arms and remove the lines of age from the hands.
“Correct many of the defects not mentioned here, but which may be possessed by exceptional cases.”
Still another advertising leaflet purports to be a reprint of an “editorial” from the Mercantile and Financial Times of March 11, 1914. It is a pretentious puff of Robinson, telling about his “scientific attainments” and his marvelous secret preparations used in “Youthifying the Face.” The Mercantile and Financial Times is an utterly discredited sheet run for the purpose of selling what appear to be editorial comments. Such “editorial” puffs are paid for through the purchase of a certain number of copies of the paper by the party who desires the publicity. The Associated Advertising Clubs of the World exposed this publication in a special bulletin issued in June, 1919, and described it as an “example of publications that serve as convenient tools of fake promoters.” In 1911 the Mercantile and Financial Times published an “editorial” endorsement of the consumption cure “Nature’s Creation.” It has done the same for a fakish device known as the “Ideal Sight Restorer.” It published a puff on the “Oxypathor,” a swindle so preposterous that the exploitation of this “gaspipe” fake was debarred from the U. S. mails and its exploiter was sent to the federal penitentiary.
Reproduction (reduced) of a testimonial for an obesity cure fake, “Get Slim.” The A. M. A. chemists reported that this “vegetable combination” consisted of baking soda and pink-tinted tartaric acid and sugar.
We also find in our files a testimonial signed E. P. Robinson, M.D., 1402 Broadway (Edward Percy Robinson’s address in 1912), extolling the virtues of a foolish piece of quackery, the obesity cure “Get Slim.” This nostrum was exposed in The Journal some years ago and was also exposed by Dr. Wiley in Good Housekeeping. The “Get Slim” concern sued Good Housekeeping for libel but a jury decided that Good Housekeeping had told the truth. In the “Get Slim” testimonial Robinson is quoted as saying that he is “acquainted with the ingredients entering into its manufacture” and he describes it, as did the “Get Slim” concern, as “a purely vegetable combination.” The fact is the Association’s chemists found this “purely vegetable combination” to consist of sugar and tartaric acid, each colored pink, and baking soda.
And this is the gentleman who claims to have discovered the cause of, and offers for sale a cure for, one of the most baffling scourges known to modern medicine—cancer. Except for the articles that have been published during the past three years in the Medical Record, we are unable to find anywhere in representative medical literature anything to indicate that Edward Percy Robinson can lay any claim to special knowledge of, or skill in the treatment of, cancer. What we do find are advertisements describing Edward Percy Robinson’s alleged abilities as a “face beautifier,” puffs from utterly uncritical or discredited sources and a testimonial to the value of a preposterous “fat cure” fake.
With the best brains of the world at work on the problem of cancer, it is reasonable to assume that any man who has found out even a little more than has previously been discovered or is able to accomplish even a little better results than the average in the treatment of this dreaded disease, would be well known to scientific medicine.
After this article was in type physicians began sending in No. 3 (April, 1921) of Therapeutic Leaves. This is still another reprint of Nos. 1 and 2, with minor changes. In the first two, Tekarkin is described as “a solution of potassium nitrate of special strength;” in No. 3 it becomes “a special solution containing potassium nitrate.” In Nos. 1 and 2, Robinson described an alleged case of “Cancer of the Rectum Treated with Tekarkin.” In No. 3 this becomes “Medicinal Treatment Cures Cancer of the Rectum.” In No. 3 the names of the editors, assistant editor and general manager are eliminated.
The inside back cover of No. 3 contains an advertisement of Tekarkin, in which physicians are warned that “Cancer of the Lung May Present Diagnostic Signs of Tuberculosis.” It contains the further startling information that the particular micro-organism responsible for pulmonary tuberculosis is the Klebs-Loeffler bacillus! Thus:
“The Klebs-Loeffler bacillus may find a suitable habitat in a malignant area of lung tissue and thrive therein. The presence of the bacillus does not necessarily exclude the presence of cancer. A chronic cough with blood-streaked sputum may be the result of tuberculosis and cancer.”—(From The Journal A. M. A., May 28, 1921.)