Sainfoin

“ It will be remembered that, while it has been claimed that “Sanatogen contains over 700 per cent. more tissue-building, life sustaining nourishment than wheat flour,” the facts are that one dollar’s worth of wheat flour contains as much energy as one hundred and ninety-seven dollars’ worth of Sanatogen! To this the manufacturers rejoin, in effect, that the casein and glycero­phos­phates in Sanatogen, being in chemical combination, possess a mystical and esoteric virtue not measurable in terms of the food-value of the several ingredients. ”

“ The slight variation between the composition claimed for Sanatogen and the composition as determined by chemical analysis is of minor importance. Whether there is 83 per cent. of casein as found by the Association’s chemists or 95 per cent. as asserted by the manufacturers matters little. The important fact is that casein makes up about nine-tenths of the preparation and, as must be perfectly evident, Sanatogen derives whatever food value it may have from that casein. ”

“ It is such men that your article holds up to contempt and dishonor when you allow the false inference to go forth that Sanatogen is a mixture of casein and glycero­phos­phates. It is such men’s careful researches and experience that you attempt to offset by the snap judgment of men whom we claim, without the slightest intent of disparaging them, to be in the present instance unfitted to give an opinion on Sanatogen inasmuch as they—​with perhaps one honorable exception—​have never tested or used the product. ”

“ Should dialysing tubes be used which allow peptones to diffuse through at a variable rate, then we should be at a loss in our judgment upon the results of a test, because, as will presently be shown, a control test of the fluid to be tested must always be made, without the presence of albumen, and the results of this test be compared with those of the tests in which albumen has been mixed in the dialysing tube with the fluid under research. Should one tube be very dense and allow little or no passage at all of the peptones, we should naturally have in this a considerable source of error. ”

“ As our readers will recognize, the above is simply a reiteration of the statements that have been published in the advertisements of Sanatogen. The song that runs through all the advertising matter is that Sanatogen is a chemical compound, and since it is a chemical compound it therefore possesses properties not to be found in the ordinary mixture. It is the old, old story; the “synthetic” argument is as hoary as the nostrum business itself but fortunately the medical profession is no longer easily fooled by it. ”

“ The spinal fluid yielded, besides marked excess of albumin and much globulin, also a “paretic” gold sol reaction and 75 cells per cmm. The W. R. was positive.
Treatment. The patient was given injections of salvarsan, 0.6 gram, twice a week, with potassium iodid. After a few weeks improvement followed, and after several months all the laboratory tests became negative, the patient was apparently perfectly normal mentally and was discharged from the hospital, and has remained well for 18 months without further treatment. The serum W. R. has continued to be negative. ”

“ During the twelve years Sanatogen has been used, prescribed and recommended by thousands of competent physicians, it has been free from all secrecy. The truth has been told at all times. From the first we have cooperated with the profession. Never have we failed to safeguard the doctor’s interests. Never have we suggested by word or inference that any person should employ Sanatogen to the exclusion of medical treatment. Not a day passes but we refer people who inquire about this or that bodily ill, to their physicians for advice. ”

“ We believe that no cerebrospinal fluid examination is complete for clinical purposes without the gold sol test.
The Wassermann reaction as carried out in the Wassermann Laboratory is based on the principles of the original method—the only essential modification consists in the employment of cholesterinized alcoholic extracts of human hearts as antigen instead of aqueous extracts of foetal livers from cases of congenital syphilis. Experience has shown that properly standardized antigens made from human hearts are much more sensitive in the detection of true cases of syphilis. ”

“ Like saponin, it is easily soluble in water, and the solution froths, and, like saponin again, it is precipitated by absolute alcohol, by baryta water, and by basic lead acetate. It may be readily distinguished from saponin by treating a watery solution with sulphuric or hydrochloric acid. On saponifying, it is split up into digitogenin, galactose, and dextrose. On heating, a beautiful red colour develops. It does not give the bromine reaction.
Digitogenin is insoluble in water and aqueous alkalies; it is somewhat soluble in alcohol, chloroform, and glacial acetic acid ”

“ Would positive globulin and excess albumin in the spinal fluid alone or in association with a positive serum W. R. warrant the diagnosis general paresis or neurosyphilis? The chances are that most neurologists would advocate proceeding to treatment in any case of positive serum reaction, whether or not there was globulin or excess albumin; but the positive globulin and excess albumin would probably not warrant the diagnosis general paresis or neurosyphilis in the absence of excess cells and the characteristic gold sol reaction and W. R. in the fluid. ”

“ If arsenic be present, a dark-gray film is deposited upon the copper. The test is more delicate if the urine be concentrated by slow evaporation. This test is well known and is widely used, but is not so reliable as the following:
Gutzeit's Test.—In a large test-tube place a little [p. 96] arsenic-free zinc, and add 5 to 10 c.c. pure dilute hydrochloric acid and a few drops of iodin solution (Gram's solution will answer) , then add 5 to 10 c.c. of the urine. At once cover the mouth of the tube with a filter-paper cap moistened with saturated aqueous solution of silver nitrate (1:1) . ”

“ Spinal fluids are tested in two ways. As a routine 0.5 cc. of the spinal fluid is used in the test and 1.0 cc. is used in the control; or when especially requested spinal fluids are titrated by using respectively 1.0, 0.7, 0.5, 0.3, and 0.1 cc. of the spinal fluid for each test and 1.0 cc. of spinal fluid for the control. Spinal fluids are not inactivated.
Complement. The complement is obtained from the serum of guinea pig’s blood. No complement is used when older than eighteen hours. A 10% solution and 0.85% salt solution is used in the test. ”

“ The test was positive.
"What is it?" gasped Seabury hoarsely, leaning over close.
"This," exclaimed Kennedy, "is the famous Abderhalden test—serum-diagnosis—discovered by Professor Emile Abderhalden of Halle. It rests on the fact that when a foreign substance comes into the blood, the blood reacts, with the formation of a protective ferment produced as a result of physiologic and pathologic conditions.
"For instance," he went on, "a certain albumin always produces a certain ferment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The liquid is then filtered into a large flask, the residue on the filter is well washed with water, the filtrate quite cooled, phenolphthalein is added and the fluid exactly neutralised with a dilute (2 to 3 per cent.) solution of alkali. Twenty-five c.c. of a 10 per cent. caustic soda solution, which must be accurately standardised upon normal acid, are then pipetted into the liquid, which is heated to boiling for ten minutes to saponify the triacetin, and the excess of alkali is then titrated back with normal acid. One c.c. of normal acid corresponds to .03067 grm. of glycerine. ”

“ Guinea-pigs' serum is that most frequently employed for experimental work.
Hæmolysin (immune body, copula, sensitising body, amboceptor) is a thermostable antibody formed in response to the injection of red cells which although in itself inert is capable of linking up complement present in the normal serum to the red cells of the variety used as antigen—a combination resulting in hæmolysis.
Hæmolysin is obtained by collecting fresh blood serum from a suitably inoculated animal and exposing it to a temperature of 56° C. (to destroy the thermo-labile complement) for 15 to 30 minutes before use. ”

“ This is a solution of secretin and the acid which was used, and the clearness of the solution shows that it is practically free from albumoses, gelatin and other impurities (such as cell tissues, etc.) present in the raw material under treatment.”
“To the solution of pure and active secretin prepared as above explained, there is added a suitable quantity of blood serum—say from one-fifth to two per cent. or any equivalent medium—such as albumin solution or a peptone solution—which will aid and sustain the activating power of secretin as provided by the blood. ”

“ The most important antibody of this latter type is Hæmolysin, a substance that makes its appearance in the blood serum of an animal previously injected with washed blood cells from an animal of a different species. The serum from such an animal possesses the power of disintegrating red blood discs of the variety employed as antigen and causing the discharge of their contained hæmoglobin, and is specific in its action to the extent of failing to exert any injurious effect upon the red blood cells of any other species of animal. ”

“ We must never, on the strength of the fact that the test with the serum alone gives a positive reaction, jump to the conclusion that, during the test, proteins have been decomposed in the serum. The substances producing this reaction were present from the beginning. If the reaction with serum alone turns out negative, then it simply means that the dialysate contains those compounds, which react with ninhydrin, in a state of concentration insufficient to produce a coloration ”

“ Albumin cannot pass through the pores of an animal membrane, since the individual molecules are too large. If, however, the albumin is broken up by a ferment-action, then the molecules become small enough to pass through."
Seabury was listening like a man on whom a stunning blow was about to descend.
"Thus we can tell," proceeded Kennedy, "whether there is such a ferment in blood serum as would be produced by a certain condition, for when the ferment is there blood from the individual possessing it will digest a similar proteid in a dialyzing thimble kept at body temperature. ”

“ A drop of the diphenylamine solution is taken up by means of a clean glass rod, and the upper corners of the filter paper are touched with it, so that when the two drops run together about a quarter of the filter paper is moist. This is then put into the test tube, and this again into the water bath, which has been heated to 70° C. The heat test reaction should not show in a shorter time than fifteen minutes. ”

“ One drop of the serum is then added to nine drops of normal salt solution, making a dilution of 1:10. Distilled water may be used for dilution, but is more liable to cause error. The dilution can be more accurately made in the leukocyte pipet of the Thoma-Zeiss instrument. When the whole blood is used, it can be secured in the pipet and at once diluted with the salt solution. When it must be transported a considerable distance, dried blood is most convenient. A large drop is allowed to dry upon a clean slide or unglazed paper. It will keep for months without losing its agglutinating power. ”

“ The difference in the gains in weight shown by the four rats are not great and certainly do not warrant the conclusion that Sanatogen possesses any marked superiority over the commercial casein in promoting growth. The slightly increased gains shown by Rats 9 and 10 are entirely incommensurate with the cost of the Sanatogen. All of the rats showed a vigorous growth and exceeded the average weight expected for rats of their respective ages, based on the long series of observations of Osborne and Mendel, as shown in Table 4. ”

“ Only serum and plasma which are absolutely free from hæmoglobin must be used for these experiments. To a measured quantity of serum or plasma a certain quantity, in cubic centimetres, of an albumen, peptone, or polypeptide solution, having a known composition in regard to substrates, is added; a polariscope tube is filled with the mixture, and the rotation is quickly ascertained by means of a good polariscope. The tube is then placed in an incubator, and from time to time the angle of rotation is again noted. ”

“ Salep yields this mucilage to cold water, forming a solution which is turned blue by iodine, and mixes clearly with neutral acetate of lead like gum arabic. On addition of ammonia, an abundant precipitate is formed. Mucilage of salep precipitated by alcohol and then dried, is coloured violet or blue, if moistened with a solution of iodine in iodide of potassium. The dry mucilage is readily soluble in ammoniacal solution of oxide of copper; when boiled with nitric acid, oxalic, but not mucic acid is produced. ”

“ The barytic compound, dissolved in water, is decomposed by carbonic acid, by which carbonate of baryum is separated, senegin remaining in solution. It is lastly to be precipitated by alcohol. It is amorphous, insoluble in ether and in cold water; it forms with boiling water a frothing solution. Like saponin, to which it is very closely allied, it excites violent sneezing.
Dilute inorganic acids added to a warm solution of senegin throw down a flocculent jelly of Sapogenin, the liquid retaining in solution uncrystallizable sugar. Alkalis give rise to the same decomposition ”