OPERATIVE TREATMENT OF A PERFORATED GASTRIC ULCER

J TONKING
1904 The Lancet  
objective statements were confirmed, a therapeutic and civil problem which is perhaps the greatest one of our age would be solved. About the end of June, 1903, I took eight guinea-pigs, six of which had been submitted to a preventive treatment for a fortnight, each swallowing daily 0 06 gramme (one grain) of garlic juice. After having dried and powdered expectorated mucus from tuberculous patients I insufflated a small quantity of this material into the larynx of each guinea-pig. The animals so
more » ... treated were kep*i for two days in a room impregnated with the same powder. Two guinea-pigs were kept as controls throughout the experiment. Three of the remaining six were given the above-mentioned quantity of garlic for a fortnight and the other three were given a similar amount till the end of September. I killed the animals in the first week of October. The results of the necropsies were that the abdominal organs and the lymphatic system of the two guinea-pigs used for control were completely filled throughout with tuberculous formations in different stages of development. The microscopic examination of some tubercles proved the presence of Koch's bacillus. In the bodies of the three animals which had been treated with garlic for one month I found from 10 to 20 small tubercles, some of them in the liver and some in the spleen. The examination of the tubercles did not reveal the presence of Koch's elements, but instead it showed the presence of numerous fibres of young connective tissue. In the bodies of the other three guinea-pigs, those which had been treated with garlic up to the end of the experiment, I could find no tuberculous formations though the most minute examination was made. The small number of animals used in the experiment forbids the drawing of conclusions. If these results should be confirmed by further researches, which I have already begun, it would be proved that garlic prevents at least guinea-pigs from contracting tuberculous diseases through breathing the germs. As this seems to be the commonest way of contracting phthisis, and if we may consider animal pathology in the same light as human, it might mean the discovery of a method for preventing consumption.
doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(00)45626-6 fatcat:sy4nibrvcrbhnfogqyqjhna6em