OYSTERS AND ANAEMIA

Hokitika Guardian, 18 February 1932, Page 2

OYSTERS AND ANAEMIA

BENEFICIAL COPPER CONTENT

LATEST RESEARCH RESULTS. WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 Raw oysters should have much the same effect as liver in treatment of the pernicious anaemias, according to Dr Paul Bartsch, the Smithsonian Institution’s authority on molluscs and professor of zoology at George Washington University. Recent indication, Dr Bartsch says, are that the potent principle in'liver which builds up red blood corpuscles is closely allied to inorganic copper salts. The ordinary oyster contains more copper in a form which will be taken up by the human tissues than any other food product in Nature. Now science is trying to devise methods of getting copper in a digestible form into milk and other common foods.

Many years ago Dr Bartsch said, it was common practice of physicians to prescribe oysters in large quantities for patients in a run-down and anaemic condition. This was the result of purely empirical observation that thei'e was somethng in the mollusc which improved the blood. It was before the days when the pernicious anaemias were generally recognised as d stinct diseases. This dietary prescription gradually dropped out of medical practice, since there was no exflet check on results, and nobody know just what happened in the blood stream,

VALUE. OF ORGANIC COPPER

A little later, Dr Bartsch said, the oyster began to be condemned by many physicians because it was found to contain considerable topper, then ct ngiderod a body poison. Special warnings were issued against greenish-coloured oysters, which were supposed to contain unusual amounts of the dreaded element. So by the time the anaemias began to be a vital problem for medicine the oyster was somewhat in disrepute.

Then the pernicious anaemias were recognised as almost incurable blood diseases, and took thousands of lives before the discovery about six years ago that many cases could be cured, or at least held in an arrested state, tlirough large additions of liver to the diet. This was followed by the development of liver extracts. One result has been that liver, which butchers used to sell for a few cents a pound, has greatly advanced in price. The extracts, prepared by an elaborate process, always have been expensive. Besides, for many persons, liver is about tlfe most disagreeable material that can be prescribed and some even have specific antipathies which make it impossible for them. An intensive search has gone on for the specific thing in liver which sets off the mechanism responsible for buildred corpuscles. The same thing has been demonstrated to exist, in smaller quantities, iu kidneys and brains, rile search has begun to concentrate on copper.

METALLIC COPPER NO AID

An oyster bed, Dr Bartsch says, is literally a mine of organic copper. Apparently little can be accomplished with metallic copper, which will not be taken up by the body. Oysters are cheap and abundant, compared with liver, and will be far more palatable to many anaemia victims. Dr Bartsch said to-day that he merely wished to tall the attention of the medical profession to the enormous possibilities of the mollusks and urge that they will arrest the anaemias.

FIELD FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

The oyster also contains, Dr Bartsch pointed out, small quantities of iodine, traces which in the diet now are recognised as essential for the prvention of thyroid gland complaints. Claims are much richer in this element. It is noteworthy, Dr Bartsch said, that not manys years ago the oyster was condemned also because of this iodine content, then considered poisonous. During recent years spectroscopic analysis of the content of human body tissues, a method so delicate that it can detect one part in millions has shown that the body contains numerous mineral elements of which the most plentiful are iron and copper. Both now are considered essential elements of protoplasm itself and introduce bio-chemists to a promising field for the explanation of some physiological processes which have remained mysterious. It is becoming evident that there must be a copper balance, although when it is introduced into the body in inorganic form in any considerable quantities it is poisonous. It remains for bio-chemists to work out, Dr Bartsch said whether some copper complex peculiar to the liver is essential for the production of red blood corpuscles, any great diminution of which means eventual death.

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