The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1889-09-06
BROWN-SEQUARD SENSATION.
What the So-calIed Elixir is, and What
1t is Not.

While DR.. Brown-Sequard has not
called his new injected fluid an elixir OF
life, it is clear that he is not sure but 1t
almost deserves the name. He recog-
nized it as probably the fact that certain
processes and changes in the human
body are irresistible and finally fatal. In
infancy the bones are gelatinous and
flexible; but gradually the proportion of
lime salts increases and the amount of
cartilage decreases, until, in old age, the
bones are brittle and perishable. This
change goes on steadily, before and after
puberty. So there is gradual change
in the structure of brain and nerve tissue,
and of muscles, until they cease to per-
form their functions and a person dies of
old age. AS one passes from childhood
to maturity, certain mental or physical
powers are developed, and then decay or
are entirely lost. There is the regular
and apparently irresistible course OF
things by which a period of protected
weakness is followed by period of
parentage and strength, and this again
by impotency, physical and mental de-
generacy and death. DR.. BroWn-Sequard
does not assert that this process can be
permanently arrested by any new-dis-
covered elixir of life; but he does suggest
and believe that as the strength and
active vigor of the years of mans
freshest youth come from the absorption
into the blood of fluids then produced,
which have a special stimulative power
upon all parts of the body, so by the in
PRODUCTION, simultaneously, into the sys-
tenn of old men of solution of fluids
taken from young and vigorous animals,
this lost force can be restored to the cir
culation, and the old vigor very much
recovered. 1t is as if fresh yeast were
put into dough, fresh malt into the stale
product of the brewery. He believes
that substances which once came natur-
ally into the blood, and thus stimulated
the vigorous action of the whole system,
can be artifcially restored to the circula-
ton, and will then in a measure in
vigorate the action of muscles and brain.
After a series of experiments on old
dogs, rabbits and guinea-pigs, made by
injections such as have been indicated,
DIR. Brown-Sequard, who is seventy-two
years old, began experiments upon him
self He says that, as result of them,
he found himself greatly improved in
strength. He had been able to work in
his laboratory but half an hour without
such fatigue as compelled him to sit
down. He had been compelled, by
fatigue, after light dinner, to retire to
his bed, but was troubled with inability
to sleep. He could 60 upstairs only
slowly and laboriously. The day after
the first simultaneous injection he found
| that a radical change had taken place,
and that he could work in his labora-
tory, standing for several hours. After
hard experimental work in that attitude,
continued for three or four hours, he
was able to 60 home, eat his dinner, and
then write on difficult subject for two
or three hours-a thing he had not done
for twenty years. He found himself
running upstairs, which he had not done
since he was sixty. That he greatly in
creased in vigor during the weeks since
he began taking the injections, May
18th, he could not doubt. He continued
them with good effect up to June 9TH.
Then, to reverse the test, he ceased
using them, and for four weeks no
marked change occurred but after July
Sd and for ten days he witnessed almost
a complete return of the state of weak
ness which existed before the first injec-
ton.
Whether the effect came from any
specific property in the fluids injected
into the circulation, or was purely the
result of what is called auto suggestion
or imagination, and yet without hypnot-
ism, is the question to be decided. DIR.
Brown-Sequard speaks with some reserve,
but evidently believes that there is real
specific power in the fluid taken from the
active glands of the young animals en-
ployed in these experiments. Hequotes
the results of experiments made upon
three old men by DR.. Variot, who has
used the fluid with success on several
old men, but failed when, with similar
words of encouragement he has used
only pure water. The experiments have,
during the past week or two, been re-
peated in a number of cases in this
country, and with varying success, some
operators declaring that the results have
been all that DR.. Brown-Sequard des-
cribes, and other that no appreciate
effects have followed. The latter con-
clusion seems probable, and it is yet far
from certain whether anything more
than imagination must be accredited
with the good results recorded.
But this may be regarded as probable,
that nothing more than mere stimulus
can be expected of any such injected
fluid. We remember when injections of
blood were first suggested and tried
what wonderful results were expected !;
but they have not followed. The trans
fusion of blood is rarely tried with any
good results. 1t is ridiculous to speak of
this as an elixir of life." There is no
elixir of life, and DR.. Brown-Sequard
would never pretend to have found one.
All he would say is that he has found
something which stimulates the nerve
centres and empowers them to do GER
tain amount of work. No medicine will
reverse the course of nature. 1t will
not replace the superfuous phosphates
of the bones with cartilage. 1t will not
restore the lost power and functions of
bodily organs. 1t can only for time
stimulate to activity, stimulation
which is as likely to shorten as it is to
prolong life. There has been so much
that is unscientifc and foolish written on
the subject during the past few weeks
so much that might give wild hopes to
people whose powers are enfeebled, that
we have thought it we'll to give the facts
on their best side, so that all that is
claimed can be clearly known, and to
indicate what we see needs to be again
to1