WAR ON OLD AGE

Evening Star, Issue 18083, 26 September 1922, Page 1

WAR ON OLD AGE

GREEK DOCTOR’S DISCOVERIES. Old ago destroys - vigor and 1 vitality, mainly by destroying the delicate elastic tubing in which the blood circulates,' and there is a good deal of truth in the saying that a man is as old as his arteries. If a man’s arteries are soft and elastic the blood flows freely through them, and his muscles and nerves, and heart and brain, and other organs are well nourished, But when advancing years fill the walls of his blood vessels with lime and cholesterin, and with the stringy, fibrous material known, as “ connective tissue,” so that their elasticity is impaired, then the circulation is impeded and all the tissues of the body suffer in their nutrition. A formation of. connective tissue in the arteries and also in many of the organs of’the body is perhaps the most characteristic sign of old age, and during the war the writer had to reject, on account of old age, move than one recruit under forty simply because his arteries ' showed such signs of senile degeneration. k SOUR MILK VOGUE. The great Russian scientist Metchnikoff, sought to discover the cause of his connective tissue formation which strangled life, and came to the conclusion that it was the result of poisons or toxins formed by germs in the' intestine, and argued that if the toxio microbes in _the intestine could be killed, old ago might be retarded. With a view to killing the microbe, accordingly, he introduced into the intesdino the microbes known as lactic acid bacilli, which grow in sour milk. For some time this sour milk treatment was greatly in vogue; but Metchnikoff himself died at a comparatively early age, and now the lactic acid bacilli have few advocates. An, advance on the same lines, however, seems to have been made by a well-known Greek doctor. Dr Zilimbaris, of Berlin. SERUM FROM RABBIT. Dr Zilimbaris accepted Metohnikoffs theory that the destruction of the arteries is duo to toxins formed by microbes in the intestine, and made a careful study of the various intestinal microbes, with a view to discovering the bacilli which did the damage. Eventually bo found the bacilli which seemed to be the guilty parties, and by injecting sterilised cultures of these into the veins of a rabbit obtained a rabbit serum which counteracted the toxins. ■ , Thereafter he obtained in the same way an anti-toxic and curative serum from human blood 1 , and with this human serum ho claims to have effected wonderful rejuvenescence in senile cases. Not only the arteries, but as wehave already mentioned, individual organs of the body, arc destroyed by the stringy fibrous tissues of old ago. Senile cataract of the eye, for instance, is an example of such destruction, and l Zilimbaris states that in one case- he so far cured a case of senile catcract that the man, who had been quite blind, could perceive’ light and count fingers some distance aWay ‘ TESTS OF EXPERIENCE. Dr Zilimbaris summarises the results of some hundreds of experiments as follows: — . , (1) The remedy is harmless; (<5) the general health is at once improved; (3) the blood pressure is reduced; (4) there is disappearance or diminution of the chalky and fibrous formations in the blood vessels • (5) there is disappearance of the general symptoms of old age. A distinguished German physician reports that he has cured by Zilimbaris’s serum a ease .of senile deafness, and another physician declares that the serum has so much improved the condition of his own arteries that “he hardly knows himself.” • There seems accordingly some reason to hope that Dr Zilimbaris has found'a means of combating the microbes that produce some of the most serious senile degenerations ; , but till his results receive further confirmation judgment must be suspended.