DOWD’S PHOSPHATOMETER
Dowd’s Phosphatometer, according to its inventor, is a device “for taking the phosphatic index or pulse of the nervous system.” Its originator, J. Henry Dowd, M.D., Buffalo, N. Y., writes enthusiastically of his instrument:
“Physicians who use the Phosphatometer are sending 50 per cent. less patients away for consultation, getting 75 per cent. better results at home, because the Phosphatometer tells the cause and what to do, and the Comp. Phosphorus Tonic gives results in 80 per cent. of all conditions of illness.”
The “Comp. Phosphorus Tonic” referred to in the above quotation is a sideline of Dr. Dowd’s, put out by the Richardson Company, of Buffalo. The stationery of the Richardson Company gives its address as 334 Franklin Street, but directs that all communications be addressed to 40 North Pearl Street, which is the private address of J. Henry Dowd. According to the Buffalo directories, 334 Franklin Street is the drug store of Arthur E. Reimann.
To those who read the Dowd “literature,” the Phosphatometer will appear to be either one of the wonders of the age or an unscientific absurdity. To the thinking man it will be the latter. It pretends to determine the amount of phosphates in the system. This is accomplished—alleged—by taking the second urine passed in the morning and mixing a portion of it in the instrument with a solution which is the well-known magnesia mixture. The height to which the crystals settle in ten minutes determines, according to Dowd, the amount of phosphates! Was ever a test devised that violated more of the first principles of quantitative chemical analysis? If so, we never heard of it. Dowd’s system does not require any determination of the amount of urine passed in twenty-four hours or even of the amount passed at the second micturition in the morning.
If a patient whose urine was being “tested” by the Dowd method, should drink two cups of coffee for breakfast instead of one, his urine might be so dilute that the phosphates would fall below the “normal” mark. Dowd says that his Phosphatometer “takes the pulse of the nervous system.” What about the patient who eats several eggs or consumes a sweetbread or other nuclein-containing articles of diet? The increased amount of phosphates in such a diet might easily lead to an apparent excess in the urine. Every physician, nay, every sophomore medical student, knows that the amount and kind of food ingested governs almost entirely the amount of phosphates excreted in the urine.
What actually does “Dowd’s Phosphatometer,” when used according to instructions, show? It shows the presence of phosphates in the urine; it permits a guess—with not the slightest claim to accuracy—as to the amount in the specimen tested; it gives no possible clue to the normal or abnormal relation of the phosphates in the urine or as to whether the source of the crystals precipitated is the nerve tissue or the food. Yet here are some of the claims made for it:
“The Phosphatometer shows nervous metabolism the same as the ureometer shows muscular; the former errs in about 3 per cent.; the latter in 40 per cent.”
“The Phosphatometer shows the amount of nerve food being used and present in the nerve cells.”