No secretin was found in the commercial products examined, namely, Secretogen Tablets, Secretogen Elixir and Duodenin. Furthermore, Carlson’s results[104] confirmed the Council’s previous conclusion as to the inertness of secretin administered by mouth. The Council endorsed Professor Carlson’s findings.[105]
The G. W. Carnrick Company has replied to the publication of this report in the letter printed below. (A portion of this letter, which consists of a communication from an unnamed correspondent of the G. W. Carnrick Company and the company’s comment thereon, has been omitted.) The Council offered to publish this if the Carnrick Company would furnish the name of the writer. This it has not done. As will be seen, the company now shifts ground, abandoning entirely the claim that Secretogen contains secretin. The Council has authorized publication of the letter (omitting the part just mentioned), together with the comment that follows.
W. A. Puckner, Secretary.
“The Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry of the American Medical Association.
“Gentlemen:—The opinion of the Council and the contribution by Professor Carlson which appeared in The Journal of the American Medical Association for Jan. 15, 1916, have been read by us with interest. The column of Current Comment dealing with ‘Tiger-Bone Therapy and Clinical Experience’ has appealed to our good nature and, under the circumstances, our sense of humor.
“Professor Carlson seems to have quite well established that the so-called secretin preparations do not contain secretin to any appreciable extent, and that they are inert in laboratory experiments on normal animals. At the same time, to do away with an apparent discrimination on the part of the management of the Council, it would have been well if Professor Carlson had included the so-called secretin preparations belonging to another well-known firm which markets such a product. This discrimination has already been referred to by us.
“Had Professor Carlson stopped at the determination of the therapeutic availability of secretin given by mouth, his work might have been accepted without comment, even if we should have thought it advisable to object to the matter published by the Council. But the professor went beyond his province entirely when, in commenting on the findings obtained by using Secretogen clinically, he said: ‘It is, perhaps, impertinent for laboratory men to comment on these clinical results.’ It is. His point was well taken and it is a profound pity that Professor Carlson did not observe his own ruling.
“In the words of a correspondent of The Journal of the American Medical Association, in discussing Professor Carlson’s criticism of Dr. Crile’s ‘Kinetic Drive,’ ‘it behooves the laboratory man to be circumspect in his criticism of clinical theories, since going beyond the bounds of well-established things weakens his position, not merely with reference to the particular subject under discussion, but with reference to clinical phenomena in general.’ Clinical results have definitely established the value of Secretogen. As the matter now stands this statement is beyond criticism.
“When Secretogen was first introduced we assumed that it depended on secretin for results produced. In this assumption we were in good company, as witnessed by the testimony of Moore, Edie and Abram when, in the course of their investigations as to the value in diabetes of a secretin-bearing extract given by mouth,[106] they said: ‘In the majority of these cases ... there has been no appreciable fall in the output of sugar ... in some of these negative cases there has been noted, however, improvement in the digestion and, in certain cases, the patient’s weight has increased.’ They also state that the secretin-bearing product ‘appears to stimulate the functional activity of the duodenum.’[106] They give a most significant report.[107] We quote from the paper as follows:
“ ‘The patient had been under observation for six months before treatment and the sugar was not reducible by diet. Almost at once the dyspepsia from which he was suffering was relieved and his general nutrition improved to such an extent that he regained over eighteen pounds in weight, which he had previously lost, and this improvement was accompanied by complete recovery of his physical and mental energies.’[106]