Arizona republican., 1903-01-22
The Latest Medical Discovery

A lOIHcT ItSlucnl OI AIlZOHd, Dr Charles c. Barrows, is the hero of the latest great discovery in medicine. That is. it will be a great discovery , until a lot of the cynics and doubting Thomases of the medical profession begin to ridicule it and tell us that they have known all about it for years. Dr. Barrows was formerly stationed at Prescott, as a surgeon in the army, and he married a Miss Curtis, young lady of Prescott. pr. Barrows' new fam. rests on his discovery that intravenous infusion of formalin will cure blood poisoning. The newspapers of New York are devoting many columns to the subject. AS a true follower of the ethics of the profession, Dr. Barrows al once made his remedy public, so that all physicians and surgeons now know as much about 1t as he does.
 The first experiment with the new remedy was made on colored woman who was admitted to Bellevue hospital while suffering from virulent septi- cemia, she having been confined eight days previously. Her temperature then was 104.3. and within twenty-four hours it had reached IO7. A bacteria logical examination made by pr. Bux- ton of Cornell medical college showed the presence of a vast number of streptococci, the bacteria of blood poi soning. Dr. Barrows asked leave of the hospital authorities to inject a solu- tion of formalin. and it was granted. Accordingly, he made an injection of 800 cubic centimetres of a solution of The temperature fell rapidly, and an other examination of the blood showed the presence of very few of the bacilli A second injection killed them all, and the woman quickly recovered. On Friday of last week the same kind oi operation was made upon another pa | tient by other surgeons, at the Hahne- mann hospital in New York. This pa tient was a white woman, and the good results were as marked as in the first experiment.
 It is somewhat of a coincidence that less than year ago another Arizona physician, Dr. Robbins, then living in Phoenix, made an experimental infu- sion of formaldehyde, but for tubercu- losis. And the former experiment was bold without qualification, for the Phoenix doctor made the injection into his own veins. For al time he was con fident that he had arrested the disease, but his death, which followed within a few weeks. was postponed little if any by the supposed remedy. This, of course, does not argue that a similar solution would not be efficacious against blood poisoning.
 Among conservative members of the medical profession opinions differ as to how far the general value of Dr Barrows' discovery has been estab- lished. Dr. Egbert Grandin, the presl- | dent of the New York Obstetrical society, before which Dr. Barrows read Q paper on his case, has said that with Oul IuI lhcI lIldl anu lIE CdSs as it stands he considers "Dr. Barrows discovery as the most important con- | tribution to medical science of this generation
 pr. William M. Polk, on the other
 hand, who supervised Dr. Barrows operation and watched its results says | that while it unmistakably marks q
 great advance in the study of blood
 poisoning. there will have to be many more cases before the efficacy of the Barrows method is authoritatively
 established.
 Meanwhile, and until he is unhorsed
 pr. Barrows is the medical hero of the
 day. And if it shall be demonstrates
 that his discovery is a remedy for blood | poisoning, some of the chief terrors oi
 maternity will have been removed.