Just how Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound is made today is not stated—at least so far as one is able to learn from recent advertising. Some years ago Sweeny declared that his “Anti-Tubercular Lymph” (as it was then called) was derived from a bullock which had been immunized to tuberculosis. Then:
“The immunized animal having been slaughtered, the contents of the lymph reservoirs are carefully collected and an aqueous extract is made from the grey cerebral substance, spinal cord and the lymph glands. It is then filtered under high pressure and de-albuminized by succussion. To this, the lymph, together with a definite proportion (50 per cent.), of the naturally phosphorized brain fats is added, with a small amount of chloride of gold (about 1-60 gr. to the dose), the latter as a preservative.”
It is a fair assumption that however the preparation may have been made originally, it is not now made in such a manner as to bring it under the federal laws governing the preparation of serums and similar preparations. The claims made for Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound are of the usual uncritical and unscientific type. Mainly, of course, they are of the testimonial class. The physician is told that the preparation has been carefully tested by men whose judgment is worthy of consideration; that the verdict has been altogether favorable to the “Compound.” Thus:
“... the remedy was submitted to a selected body of skilled physicians, recognized for their skill and care in making therapeutic observations. These men represented widely varying conditions, climatic and otherwise. Those who said ten years ago that Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound has a specific immunizing influence upon the tuberculosis patient, find the same to be true today.”
Careful reading of the matter just quoted will reveal its ambiguity and inherent lack of frankness. The inference conveyed is that the “selected body of skilled physicians” have unqualifiedly endorsed Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound (Sweeny)—but it does not say so!
It is the history of all such preparations, introduced to the medical profession with the usual blare of trumpets, that a certain number of favorable testimonials can be obtained. It is also the history of such products that one has but to wait a few years and the physicians who had written most enthusiastically regarding the preparation—in the first flush of their optimism following its use and the perusal of the manufacturers’ literature—will acknowledge that they were mistaken in their original estimate and are no longer using the agent. In this connection an investigation of some of the old testimonials for Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound by the Propaganda department of The Journal is instructive.
In a somewhat elaborate booklet published in 1907 by Sweeny, an Indiana physician was said to have reported favorable results following the administration of the “lymph.” A letter written to this physician in October, 1919, asking for his present opinion on the product brought this reply, in part:
“... it being twelve years since using the serum and no reference or repeated orders since should surely suffice as evidence of my lack of faith in the serum....”
An Illinois physician was reported in the same booklet to have described a case of a young man with an active tuberculosis, who was given injections of the “lymph” in February, 1907. The patient, it was claimed, showed immediate improvement and the Sweeny booklet (published in August, 1907) stated that “improvement in this case continued and terminated in complete recovery.” A letter written to the physician in October, 1919, brought out the fact that the young man in question, after receiving “Anti-Tuberculous Lymph Compound” and other treatment was removed “on a stretcher” “to New Mexico, where he remained for three or four years” and recovered. The doctor adds: