Organotherapy

(or-gan-o-tker' -ap-e). The treatment of diseases by the administration of animal organs, or extracts prepared from them. Although organotherapy has existed in some form since the most ancient times, the method as now practised, is of recent origin. Brown-Sequard, in 1889, suggested the employment of testicular juice in the treatment of the mental and physical deterioration incident to old age. Experiments which he had made upon himself had, he reported, yielded the most brilliant results. Physicians in different parts of France subsequently tested the properties of extract and found its dynamo genic action beneficial in diseases attended with debility, especially in senile changes, in pulmonary tuberculosis, leprosy, locomotor ataxy, general paralysis and anemia. Paul, in 1892, under the name of nervous transfusion, advocated the conditions hypo dermatic use of an extract of sheeps' brain in of neurasthenia. The method of preparation of the various extracts as employed in France is that suggested by d'Arsonval. The organ is removed with all po ible antiseptic precautions, and is cut into small pieces of about one c.c. The segments are covered with pure glycerin and allowed to macerate for twenty-four hours. Before filtering, two or three parts of distilled water are added. Sterilization is accomplished by means of carbonic acid gas under pre ure. The first step toward a rational application of the method of organotherapy was the subcutaneous transplantation of pieces of thyroid gland in cases of myxedema and cachexia strumipriva by Horsley and Kocher, and later the employment of extract of sheeps' thyroid in myxedema, the credit of which belongs to G. R. Murray, of Newcastle, England. Since Murray's announcement, in 1891, the method has been extensively tested in England and elsewhere; many cases of myxedema have been reported as improved, and not a few cured. Gratifying results have also been achieved in sporadic cretinism, and in psoriasis and other chronic affections of the skin. Various preparations of the thyroid gland have been emploved, e.g., glycerin extracts, dry extracts in powder, and finally the uncooked or partially cooked gland has been used. In the particular case of myxedema neither the kind of preparation nor the mode of administration seems to be of much importance.