The Portland daily press., 1895-04-16
DIR. WALDSTEIN'S DISCOVERY,
Consumption and Cancer May Both
Yield to it.

German scientists VIII give the New
York Physicians Method Much AT
tention- PiIocarpine Is Employed te
Whet the Appetite of White Corpus
cIes for Disease Microbes.
The interest aroused by the publication
in United Press dispatches of the discovery
in Berlin by DR.. Louis Waldstein of a cure
for consumption and cancer has caused the
department of state to make public the full
text of the official report from Consul-Gen.
eral DeKay at Berlin, which has just been
received. 1t is follows:
''The coming medical congress at Munich
is likely to give no little attention to dis.
covery made by DR.. Louis Waldsfein of New
York, which is announced this week in the
Berliner Xlinische Wochenscrift, the most
serious and Trustworthy medical weekly in
Germany. The congress will have much tt
say about Loffier and Behring's Heilserum
for the cure of diphtheria, and as DR.. VALID
STEMS discovery in q certain sense com.
pletes the Heilserum, acting favorably on
patients whom the serum does not cure, the
new idea of the American can hardly fail tu
be noticed.
even if it only cured the obsure and hither-
to !ncura bic disease of the skin called lupus,
ought TO be known at once in America.
where it may save lives and shorten much
affection.
During his earlier studies in New York.
Dir. Waldstein (born in that city. and the
possessor of large practice there) had his
attention called to pilocarpine, an extraci
usually sold in crystals, from the jaborandi,
Brazilian plant fpilocarpus pennatifolius)
This well-known alkaloid acls powerfully
on the salivary and sweat glands.
''At the same time DR.. Waldstein was try
ing TO discover the effects of the stimulat-
ion of various glands like the thyroid, lynn
phatic. etc.. on the entire system. He made
the discovery that pilocarpine exercised
the most surprising effects on the lymphat-
ic glands and the entiIe system to which we
ascribe the alteration of the lymph, or
white corpuscles of the blood.
''The key of his discovery is this: By sue
cessive injections of minute doses of piIo-
carpine in the veins be arrives a gradual
of tie lyinpnatic system. That
system increases the willie corpuscles in
tn blood. which corpuscles-as is well es-
tablished through Metchnikoff of the Pas
teur Institute of Paris, Rankin of Cam
bridge, and Buchner of Munich-in some
way not generally agreed upon. do certain
ly overcome and cause to be harmless those
poisonous particles in the blood which pro-
duced disease.
"Metchnikof thinks that the microbes
which destroys the red corpuscles of the
blood are swallowed and englobed alive by
the white corpuseles. Hankin and Buchner
think that the white corpuscles merely alb
sorb the dead microbes, and therefore call
the white corpuscles 'alexne,' or protective
particles. DR.. Waldstein goes to the foun-
tain whence these white corpuscles spring.
and tries to enliven its action and produc-
tiveness, when, through disease, these health
giving particles have become too few to
keep the blopd in pl oper order.
"Dr. Waldstein has not had time to watch
the effect of his discovery il relation TO tu-
bereulosis of the lungs. but the reasoning
that led him to what he has already
achieved seems equally good for the cure
of this terrible scouTge of mankind. He
strongly advises physicians TO try pilocar-
pine in the early stages of consumption and.
indeed. in all diseases where the Emphatic
system is involved. because of its stimulat-
ing action upon the organs in that system
and the consequent production of white
eorpuslles. II > has satisfied himself that
pilocaIp pine. when injected in the veins,
forms a trIstw orthy test for the presence of
tubel cular disease in men and in animals.
giving the physician the strongest possible
certainty in the diagonis of obscure cases.
"a striking instance of the truth of his
reasoning is the case of man "a years old,
a Berliner, who had a lupus on the back of
his right hand for 22 years and was thought
incurable. Relief was immediate after the
first injection. and the hand is almost
healed. This cure has created a sensation
among medical men, and some hope that
the road to the cure of cancer also has been
entered"