LIVER DIET.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 201, 9 August 1927, Page 6

LIVER DIET.

FOR PERNICIOUS ANEMIA. BENEFICIAL RESULTS. According to statements made at the meeting of the Canadian Medical Association in Toronto, the liver treatment for pernicious anemia has raised the price of calves’ liver in Toronto from 10 cents to 50 cents a pound. Dr. F. A. Campbell, of London, said that so popular had liver diet for the disease become, that in Stratford liver had gone up from 35 cents to 60 cents a pound.

Replying to Dr. MacGillivary of Toronto, Dr. Campbell stated that any kind of liver, pork, lamb or beef, had the same good effect. He stated that it could be cooked in almost any way; boiled, bc3ked, fried or made into soup.

Dr. Fergus said that liver soup had been used for years in China for certain symptoms connected often with pernicious anemia. The use of liver in this way came to China from India, he said.

Dr. Duncan Graham, indicating that he thought the beneficial results of the liver treatment for this disease had not been emphasised Enough, said: " The action of liver 6n pernicious anemia is so pronounced that it may now be used for the purpose of diagnosing this disease. The reaction that occurs within fourteen days is so specific that it can not be mistaken. It does not occur in any other kind of anemia. The change in the blood cells makes them approximate to normal.

" One of the pathological factors in pernicious anemia is a very large cell in the blood. The type of cell tends to disappear with the feeding of liver. This is not done by any other treatment."

Outlining a number of cases treated by liver at the Toronto General Hospital, Dr. Graham said that this treatment was much superior to anything ever seen before. AU these patients had shown increases in the red blood cell count from 10 per cent, to 64 per cent. "Soit is not difficult now," he said, ”to have patients with normal haemoglobin count within three or four months."