Transplantation

“ My greatest number of men come for impotency, next for prostatitis, and many for a general improvement in health. Many come with but one purpose—to prolong their lives. I believe that those who receive gland transplantation will live much longer than without it. Possibly as much as from 10 to 25 years can be added. Then successive transplants can be made, and we have no idea how long they will live. Their skin takes on the appearance of youth. I know that after the ovaries have been transplanted into women who have none their menses return on a 4-day period regularly. ”

“ The cures that I have effected by gland transplantation up to the present time are enough to justify me for all of my work and efforts along this new line of science. Should I never operate again, I feel justly repaid and know that I have started something that will go on and on and live forever. Gland transplantation for the cure of disease within the next ten years will be as common as the removal of a diseased appendix is now. ”

“ The need for donors far surpasses the supply. Current medical technology enables the transplantation of organs and tissues including kidney, heart, heart-lung, lung, liver, pancreas, skin, cornea, bone, and bone marrow. ”

“ This year marks the 50th anniversary of the first successful organ transplant in the United States. Since that time, organ and tissue transplantation have significantly increased, and last year, more than 25,000 Americans received an organ transplant. ”

“ The Blood# lends itself in an ideal manner to transplantation, or, as it has long been called, _transfusion_. Being always a homoplastic transfer, the new blood is not always tolerated by the old, in which case biochemical changes occur, resulting in haemolysis, which corresponds to the disintegration of other unsuccessful homoplastic grafts. ”

“ Another very important and practical subject is wrapped up in this one, namely, the utilization of apparently dead, or at least of only potentially living material (tissue) in the various methods of grafting or transplantation, which are to-day a part of the surgeon's work. The methods are themselves a transplantation of experiences gained by work in the vegetable kingdom. What wonder that the marvels re [Pg 45] vealed in one department should have incited work along parallel lines in the other? ”

“ The transplantation of diseases is a stupendous remedy, by means of which the ailments of this or that person are transferred to a brute animal, or to another person, or to some inanimate thing”—various methods being instanced. He returned to the subject in 1673 under the title of the Transplantation of Disease, the name by which Pylarini first described the engrafting of smallpox [889] . It was the transfusion of blood, a foible of the time, especially at the Royal Society in London, which set Bartholin to his second essay. ”

“ Encouragement of organ and tissue donation must always be accompanied, of course, by thorough reflection and complete information. Recent medical and technological developments are posing new moral and ethical questions about transplantation in certain circumstances. Individuals, and society as a whole, must carefully consider these questions so that we never undercut our reverence for the sanctity God vests equally in the life of every person, from the moment of conception until natural death. ”

“ Brinkley say that in the case of a man who has had both glands removed by surgical operation, the transplantation will produce new glands for the man, and yet he has had two successes to offset several failures in this very result, without any clue to why the success followed in the one case and not in the other. ”

“ But we do find that the belief in transference or transplantation was one of the underlying principles of all medical practice in ancient and mediæval times; and, by a reference to the examples cited, it will be noted that special stress was laid upon the employment of clippings of the hair or nails of the patient, or his urine, ordure, or, in rarer instances, his saliva or perspiration ”

“ Thousands of families have made the same selfless decision and have given the gift of life to someone in need of an organ or tissue transplantation. Today, approximately 55,000 Americans are on the national organ transplant waiting list, hoping for a second chance. Yet, every day, 10 people will die because organs are not available. These tragic deaths are unnecessary. Our country has a large number of people who qualify as organ donors-but many still have not chosen to become donors. ”

“ All Americans must know what they can do to consent to become organ and tissue donors. By completing a uniform donor card and carrying it at all times, anyone can give the gift of life to people in desperate need of organs and tissues for transplantation. ”

“ Removal of the spleen, transplantation of thyroid tissue into the spleen, decapsulation of the kidney, transplantation of ovarian tissue, gastric and intestinal operations, anastomosis of blood-vessels, operations upon the uterus and cervix, prostate, vas deferens, thyroid, nose, ear, etc., and many other surgical procedures may be practiced with profit upon a cadaver during the course of an autopsy. The feasibility of a new operative method or the improvement of an old one may thus be demonstrated. ”

“ You can hardly pick up a daily paper without reading an account of some surgeon performing a wonderful operation of transplanting bone or tissue from some animal to replace that which was diseased 81 in the human. Why not borrow what we need from the animal? We use their flesh for food. We also use their gland substances in the fresh or dried form to supply our bodies with whatever we may not possess.
80
THE TOGGENBURG GOATS
My first efforts in gland transplantation were directed towards the cure of sterility. ”

“ These observations, which are supplied to us by pathology, together with facts which may be produced at any time—as when we extirpate certain organs and, after the results of such extirpation have manifested themselves, make a fresh transplantation—give an extremely varied picture of the reciprocal relations of the different organs towards each other. ”

“ During this past year he has perfected his technique, implants the male glands exclusively into men and the female glands or ovaries into women, and has definitely selected the scrotum of the man as the only right place in which to introduce the goat-glands for the transplantation. You are here viewing the development of a great scientific discovery from the beginning of its employment upon human beings. ”

“ Nearly 18,000 people are diagnosed each year with illnesses for which blood stem cell transplantation—requiring marrow or cord blood—is the best treatment option. Over 65 percent of these individuals require donors from outside their own family. ”

“ In ordinary cases of gland-transplantation into women, where the patient is in good physical condition, with no disease of the organs, the operation is as simple as in the case of the man. The speculum discloses the condition of the vagina, and the insertion of the new ovary is into the mucous membrane of the vagina, leaving the goat-ovary about four inches distant from the woman’s. The only incision made is a small one, about one inch long, painless under local anesthetic, the purpose of the 24 incision being to get a blood supply for the goat-ovary. ”

“ The results achieved by men like Alexis Carrel, Ebleing, and Fische, all of whom are now working with success on tissue-culture and the transplantation of anatomical structures from one living organism to another, will be improved upon, and a means will be discovered by which the fertilized ovum will be matured outside the female body. ”

“ The losses in transplantation have been huge, but it is impossible to estimate them accurately, for even the current figures for the Catholic population are based on detailed estimates rather than on an actual count. ”

“ In that commonly fatal condition of the arteries which follows rapidly upon the state of blood pressure known as hardening of the arteries, or arterio-sclerosis, a practically incurable condition hitherto, the results obtained by the goat-gland transplantation are miraculously swift. When the arteries are, as the doctor puts it, “as hard as pipe-stems,” they grow in a few weeks, sometimes in a week, soft and pliable. ”

“ I have the most positive knowledge that when the operation is rightly performed the glands do NOT slough, and my knowledge is founded upon the hard facts of much experience. In another ten years I shall know more than I know today because I shall have added to my facts, and among those facts there may be some which confirm the hope of the woman of forty alluded to above that this gland transplantation may hold the condition of youth steady as something static, which will not be suffered to pass. ”

“ In view of the cases I have cited it may be doubted whether the intention (at all events, the original intention) of many of the prescriptions of hair, saliva, food and other things belonging to the patient, to be given to the lower animals was transplantation, and not rather union with another and a healthy body. Thus, in Kerry and Leitrim a cure for the whooping-cough is to pour some milk into a saucer, let a ferret drink some of it, and give the rest to the sufferer. ”

“ The generosity for which the American people have always been known shines clearly today in the willingness of many people to become organ and tissue donors so that others might live or have an opportunity to enjoy a fuller life. Thousands of Americans will receive an extraordinary gift this year-a kidney, heart, liver, pancreas, a combination of heart and lung, skin, a cornea, bone, or bone marrow. The great majority of these gifts will have been possible only because a caring American agreed to donate an organ or tissue for transplantation. ”

“ Glands have proved much superior to any animal extract or serum in this class of cases. Often in serums the poison elements are retained, but not the nutritive. We use the whole goat gland, as a rule, because we do not know in what part of it the hormones hide. The attempted transplantations of kidneys have thus far failed because the kidney product is waste matter, not live cells as in the case of the interstitial glands. ”

“ It is interesting to remember that while it is possible to increase the mineral particles of soda, potash, lime, iron, 75 silica and magnesia in the blood and lymph, it is practically impossible for us to increase the animal contents of the cells by any method of medication or dieting known to us. Only Life can produce this change in the cells, and only this method of gland-transplantation has furnished a means of impressing Life into service to work for us in this matter. ”

“ The Director may nominate, in writing, any medical practitioner to be the designated officer of a hospital for the purposes of this Act.
PART II
REMOVAL OF ORGAN AFTER DEATH
Authorities may remove organ after death
5.— (1) The designated officer of a hospital may, subject to and in accordance with this section, authorise, in writing, the removal of any organ from the body of a person who has died in the hospital for the purpose of the transplantation of the organ to the body of a living person. ”

“ I appeal to the many who have witnessed the picture for the accuracy of my portraiture. So much good material constantly infused into society ought to improve the character of the compound, but the demoralizing effects of transplantation greatly neutralize the benefits. ”

“ It follows from this that the implanting of living bone is to be preferred to the implanting of dead bone or of foreign material. We believe that transplanted living bone when placed under favourable conditions survives and becomes incorporated with the bone with which it is in contact, and does not merely act as a scaffolding. We believe also that the retention of the periosteum on the graft is not essential, but, by favouring the establishment of vascular connections, it contributes to the survival of the graft and the success of the transplantation. ”

“ In addition, remarkable advances have also been made in developing procedures that permit the successful transplantation of insulin-producing cells into diabetic animals without the need for chronic suppression of the immune system. ”

“ For woman, for whom old age has perhaps even greater terrors than for man, such restoration has not yet been made. Indeed, ovariotomy has less effects upon young women than does castration upon man, so that here we face a new problem that cannot yet be solved. The problem now is whether we can generalize yet from these special studies, including bone grafting313 and the surgery of transplantation of other organs. ”

“ It is almost impossible for me to get cases of locomotor-ataxia. When a man writes me he also asks his family physician, who very quickly informs him “there is nothing to it; it’s all bunk!”
My cases have ranged in age from 18 to 75 years. My patients that are from 60 to 75 85 years of age write me they feel as they did when they were boys 18 years of age. I have transplanted glands for almost every conceivable disease and have received splendid results in almost every case. All cannot be cured, but all of them can be greatly benefited. ”