Three series of experiments were made and reported by Drs. Mann and Gage, comparing the histology of the blood in starvation and during the height of digestion. The experiments of the first series were made on six students, the starvation period being thirty-six hours, ordinary food being taken after the thirty-six hours’ fast, so far as can be gathered from Dr. Mann’s report. It was found that during the height of digestion the nuclei of the lymphocytes and leukocytes stain more deeply, and that there is a slight decrease in the cytoplasm and consequent diminution in the size and number of the granules of the neutrophil and the eosinophil cells, in comparison with the blood during fasting.
The experiments of the second series were made on 100 frogs that had starved for months, blood-films being taken at varying periods after feeding 1 gm. Sanatogen. The changes noted in the white blood-cells of the frogs were practically identical with those described in the case of the six students. Increased cell division is stated to occur. The nuclei of the erythrocytes stain more deeply and the cells are increased in size, and exhibit increased cell division twenty-four hours after the feeding.
The third series consisted of one experiment on Dr. Mann himself. He fasted twenty hours and then took 15 gm. of Sanatogen in a cup of water. Practically the only change noted in the blood after the feeding was a deeper staining of the nuclei of the white cells. To quote:
“The changes in the granules of the polymorphonuclear leukocytes and in the eosinophils were much less marked than in the specimens supplied by the students, and the diminution in the size of the white cells was so insignificant as to be hardly noticeable.”
Assuming that the blood-changes reported are correct, is the conclusion warranted that Sanatogen is a powerful recuperative stimulant to the blood?
In the first place, it remains to be proved, for there is as yet positively no evidence, that the deeper staining of the nuclei during digestion and absorption of a protein meal represents “recuperative power of the blood” or processes of “feeding” on the part of the white cells. The actual significance of these changes requires further investigation. The increased division of the blood-cells described by Dr. Mann in the frogs was not observed by him in man. This phenomenon in the frogs is, in all probability, associated with the extraordinary length of the starvation period (months) and the well-known seasonal variations in the physiology of this species.
In the second place, waiving for the moment the question of the significance of the blood-changes observed, the evidence, so far as it goes, points to the conclusion that the greater affinity of the nuclei of the white cells for the stain is brought about by the feeding of any protein food. The experiments do not demonstrate any different or more marked effect from Sanatogen than from other protein foods.
The test on the six students with ordinary food can be considered as a control on the single Sanatogen test on Dr. Mann himself. The blood-changes in the students were more marked than in Dr. Mann.
Although Mann and Gage say that six frogs were used as controls, they do not say how the controls were treated, or draw any comparisons between the controls and the frogs fed with Sanatogen. So far as the report goes, therefore, the only basis for comparison is afforded by the work of one of Dr. Mann’s pupils, H. G. Butterfield. This worker, as quoted by Mann, found that on feeding newts after two weeks’ starvation with a worm the size of a wooden match, the nuclei of all tissues (excepting nerve cells) take a much deeper stain than in the control animals. To pronounce Sanatogen, on the basis of the facts reported, a “powerful stimulus” to blood-formation is a piece of special pleading, if not of downright disingenuousness. Considered on its own merits, the work would not have appeared to me worthy of being repeated for the purpose of checking up such obviously unwarranted conclusions. In order to comply with the request made of me, however, I have repeated Dr. Mann’s experiments: