The Internal Use of Paraffin Oil.

Huntly Press and District Gazette, Volume 3, Issue 6, 9 April 1914, Page 3

The Internal Use of Paraffin Oil.

WHAT SOME MEDICAL MEN THINK. Based on (ha discoveries of Dr. Sir W. Arbufchnot Lane, the eminent surgeon of Guy’s Hospital, London, an article appeared in the March issue of Life ” setting out how purified paraffin oil might be used as an aid to long life. “ Life ” repeats in its April issue, that inquiries made in scientific, medical, and other quarters, in Australia, go to show that (ho claims as to what paraffin oil can do for the human race are not based upon a fad, nor upon an obsession, but that Dr. Lane’s theories have been put to practical test, and have no been found wanting in results. The following extract from April “Life” is worth quoting : Briefly re-stated, this sostyled‘recipe for long life’, and the theory upon which it is based is that the majority of the members of the human race suffer from a defect of the lower intestine, which prevents what is jiractically the drainage system of th° body from working properly. To overcome this defect, Dr. Lane in a large number of cases performed the operation of removing the defective portion of the intestine, and joining np the ends —in other words, doing what electricians would call a‘short-circuit * of the intestine. The effect was to create a renovated intestine which would perform its work as well as the .anginal. “H -wever, as this defective portion of the body could not he removed from the whole of the human race Dr. Lane set rbout it to try and discover some means of making it work effectively and properly. The result of his experiments, made both on himself and his patients, was that if the defective part of the canal was lubricated, it performed its work satisfactorily. He found paraffin oil the only lubricant which would answer his requirements, as being a purely mineral ! oil, and neither a food, a i poison, nor a drug. It could not. be absorbed into the system, and therefore acted exactly in the way he wanted as a lubricant, ; purely and simply, to make more easy the work of a deficient portion of the human drainage machinery. “ This simple recipe for long life has been taken up with enthusiasm by medical men in

Australia, not merely because its use makes for longevity alone but because in paraffin oil has been found that which medical men will rarely acknowledge a panacea for many ills due to constipation and auto-intoxica-tion. A GREAT DOCTOR’S VIEW. “ And these claims as to the astonishing number of all ills for which paraffin oil is a remedy are perhaps best set out in a critical recapitulation of them, which Dr. T. George Amadi, M.D., Se.D., L.L.D., F.R.S., Strathcona Professor of Pathology, McGill University, Montreal, delivered before the medical society of the city and county of Denver, Colorado, and which is reproduced in the ‘ British Medical Journal ’ ‘ Steadily and progressively during the last score or so of years,’ said Dr. Amadi, there has developed a tendency to ascribe to derangement of the intestinal track the origin of not a few grave disorders, until to-day we have Sir Arbuthnot Lane recording no fewer than seventeen more or less outstanding symptoms as directly due to stasis and the delayed passage of feacal matter through the lower end of the ileum and the larger bowel, together nine maladies clue to the same cause. Continuing, Prof. Adami recapitulates the conclusions at which Dr. Lane arrived : “ By chronic intestinal stasis, says Sir Arbuthnot, he means the passage of the contents of intestinal canal is delayed sufficiently long to result in the production, in the small intestine especially, of an excess of toxic material, and in the absorption into the circulation of a greater quantity of poisonous products than the organs which convert and excrete them are able to deal with. In consequence there exist in the circulation materials in every single tissue of the body and lower its resisting power to invasion by deleterious organisms. SOME AUTO INTOXICATION AILMENTS. “ He (Dr. Lane) enumerates the following as the symptoms which result directly from the “autointoxication” of chronic intestinal stasis : “(1) Loss of fat. (2) Wasting of muscles. (J) Alteration in the texture and colour of the skin, and offensive perspiration. (4) Subnormal temperature. (5) Mental conditions of apathy, stupidity, or misery, which beaune exaggerated to a stat . of melancholia, or even apparent imbecility, with suicidal tendencies. There may he neuralgic symptoms, neuritis, frequent headache, loss of control over the temper. (6) Rheumatic aches and pains. (7) Atrophy of the thyroid gland. (8) Either increased or lowered blood pressure. (9) Degenerative changes in the breasts, predisposing to cancer. (10) Prolapse of abdominal organs. (11) Breathlessness on exertion. (12) Degeneration of the heart muscles. (13) Renal changes which are roughly grouped under the term “ Bright’s Disease.” (14) Early lass of hair colour with falling out. (15) Affections of the pancreas with chronic induration, inflammation, and finally cancer; pancreatic diabetes. (16) Infection of the biliary system. (17) Degenerative diseases of the eye.” Added to these is a rather terrifying list of ‘ indirect ’ results. In anothe issue of the‘British Medical Journal,’ Setor S. Pringle, F.R.C.5.1., Surgeon to Mercer’s and Cork Street Hospitals, Dublin, in the course of an article on chronic intestinal stasis, a condition which has hitherto been treated by operation, claims that the internal administration of paraffin oil or 1 Red C. Paraffin,’ as the correct oil sold in Australasia is called—will prove highly beneficial. ‘ Patients after such treatment show very striking results. They often veritably seem to to renew their youth. They sleep better, eat better, look better, and feel better. They are desirous of, and capable of, leading more active lives ; that is, they lose their mental and physical lassitude. OPINIONS OF AUSTRALIAN MEDICAL MEN. An eminent Melbourne surgeon, when talking of the various intestinal operations which are performed with a view to bettering digestive deficiencies remarked : ‘The surg;on is apt to take a short cut which, is sometimes a long cut.’ He was enthusiastic about the results obtained from the purified paraffin oil. ‘I have, he said, ‘used it myself in treating innumerable ses, and the results have at all nes proved highly satisfaci y, eliminating, in many instances, the necessity for an operation, which had, at first, seemed imperative.’ One of the leading Collins Street practitioners, who has devoted much time to the study of the digestive system, pronounces paraffin oil as an invaluable ' lubricant. ‘lt is purely a lubricant,’ lie said,‘and its action is quite indirect and mechanical ■ but I have proved its value by I the results obtained in the huni- dreds of cases treated with thh oil.” I Extra details of this most in ■ teresting treatment will be , found in “Life,” but any readei ) who wishes to experiment per sonally may, according to “Life,’ 1 do so safely, provided the cor . rect purified parraffin is secured This is known and sold in Aus i tralasia as “RedC. Paraffin.” anc i should be insisted on for Its

e “ Life” believes so strongly in e the use of purified paraffin that s it has secured from the Red C. 1 Parraffin Co. a supply of booklets a for its readers on the uses of 0 purified paraffin. Any reader of - this paper may get a copy of the booklet free who cares to send a - card to “Life,” 376, Swanson Street. Melbourne, and simply e states; “Send paraffin booklet,. ■ s free.”