A CURE FOR OBESITY.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 16 October 1914, Page 8

A CURE FOR OBESITY.

An excess of adipose tissue, whether due to addiction to the pleasures of the table—greediness, in plain words—or to pathological causes, such as faulty metabolism and imperfect processes of inhibition, is distressing to its victim in many ways and may be injurious to health as well as a source of personal discomfort and mortification. Hence (says the "Scientific American") the methods of reduction are numerous and well exploited. Home of these, however, such as those based on restricted diet and vigorous exercise, depend on the will-power of the patient for their effectiveness, a factor which is lamentably variable and inconsistent; others, including- various purgative and sweating regimens, may seriously affect the general health ; while others still, such as electric treatments, special baths and massage, may be prohibitively costly from the necessary expense of apparatus and attendants.

Such disadvantages seem to be absent from a method of reducing obesity by physico-chemical action levised by Dr. Max Kauflmann and described by him in a lute number of the "Berliner Tageblatt." It consists of the injection under the skin of a preparation of colloidal palladium, and the claim is made for it that it is effective without demanding thirsting, fasting, or dieting, and without affecting the health unfavourably. The substance named is injected under the skin in quantities of 50 to 100 milligrams per dose, and it is alleged that the fat at once begins to dissolve and disappear at the rate of about 2 pounds per day, nearly 40 pounds having been lost in a comparatively brief time, leaving the patient's health not only uninjured, but actually improved.

The process is commented on favourably by Carl JLudwig Schleich in "Ueber Land und Meer." He points out that the most natural method of reducing fat is to accelerate the internal combustion, or oxidation by an increased intake of oxygen, which may be accomplished by muscular labour, outdoor sports, gymnastics, breathing exercises," and so forth. The application of cold by cold baths and rubs, repeated chillings, and by the wearing of thin clothing is likewise useful, since the .fat is then called on to play its natural part of fuel and is literally burned up, i.e., changed into carbon dioxide and water, in the effort to retain the body at its normal temperature.

Where an accumulation of fat is due to pathological causes, however, there is a lowered power of oxidation in the system. In some manner the delicate reactions and interactions of metabolism and inhibing factors have been disturbed and thrown -out of gear, and this forms the starting point of Dr. KaufTmann's theory.

"He justly observes that in cases fcf obesity the oxidising power oi the organism is disturbed and hence was led to believe that this function could be partly replaced or assisted by the introduction of a catalyser between the fat and the oxygen, i.e., by bringing a chemicophysical fire-brand, so to speak, into the stores of reserve food material. This he found in the socalled colloidal palladium, which is taken into the circulation in the form of the paraffin-coluble palladious hydroxide. Dr. Schleich considers it conceivable that the palladium may1 have just such an oxidising action as platinum is known to exert on the red blood corpuscles, or as fibrolyism and thiosinamine have upon the connective fibres of scar tissue, or again as arsenic exhibits in its selective power for certain tissues. "The affinities of certain chemical substances," he remarks, "for specific components of cells has long played an important role in the investigation of dead cell-mater-ials in histology for the recognition of tissue constituents. Now a new area is beginning when this property is utilised with regard to living cells.