Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1914-11-07
THE DR.. FRIEDMAN
CONSUMPTION CURE
United States Public Health
Services Report Agrees with
Reports from Other Countries
That 1t Is Not a Specific Cure
for tuberculosis.

Washington, Nov. 6.-The cure for
tuberculosis which aroused such a
sensation in this country when DIR. F.
F. Friedman, the Berlin physician,
came here in the spring of 1913, has
just been made the subject of a report
by the United States Public Health
Service.
This remedy was so widely heralded
by sensational newspaper notice, that
it seems safe to say that there could
hardly be a person of adult years in
the country who did not hear some
thing about it, or a victim of tuber-
cuiosis who. did not experience a thrill
of hope of speedy and complete cure.
The report naturally does not deal
with the pitiful and sordid details of
the scenes ensuing upon Dr. Fried
mann's advent, of the crowds of in
valids, many of them penniless bat
Ting for a chance TO take the treat
ment, of the greedy exploitation of
hopeless cases who happened to have
money, and the turning away of those
who did not. The report details merely
the medical observations made on GER
tain patients, the laboratory studies On
the culture used by DR.. friedman,
and refers to the moral peculiarities
of the doctor, only sufficiently to make
it clear that it was his own fault that
the investigation was not continued
longer and upon a greater number of
suitable cases.
1t is pointed out that the ma1Rer in
which DR.. Friedman presented his
claims before the Berlin Medical
ran a
contention that he had discovered at
last the sovereign cure for tubercu-
losis in all its forms, provided of
course that the disease had not already
progressed beyond all hope of recovery.
These claims the report takes up in
detail and then draws the deadly par
allel between them and the results of
the application of the treatment to
patients under the observation of the
Service doctors. Whereas the claims
are based on cases which always seem
to get well, or at least to show phe-
nomenal Improvement, after one or two
injections, the cases which reacted in
this manner among the test series were
conspicuously few.
The report does not commit itself as
to whether the improvement noted in
these few cases was due to the treat
ment, or to the stimulus of a great
hope, or to unassignable causes which
work improvement in some cases of
every large series; but it does point
out distinctly that if anyone prefers
the first explanation he must in justice
attribute also to the treatment the very
distinct and unusual deterioration in
the condition of certain other patients
which progressed in some of them to
speedy death.
Aside from these more serious cases
1t was shown that about one-fourth
Of all the cases receiving the treatment
developed running sores or assesses
at the place where they were injected,
happening which DR.. friedman
had admitted to be unfavorable to a
cure, but which he claimed to have
completely overcome by his method
of injecting the material into the veins.
long series of experiments with
the bacteria used by Friedman is re-
ported, which show that the germ is
different from the varieties of tubercle
bacilli commonly known at the present
time. and that far from making small
animals more resistant to tubercular
Infection, it made the majority of those
inoculated more susceptible. The re-
port is therefore - s:ne with other re-
ports coming from scientific sources
here ana abroad which have refuted
Dr. Friecmaia's claims to the dis
covery of specific cure for tubercu
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