SEA WATER.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 18086, 1 May 1919, Page 8

SEA WATER.

SPECIFIC FOR TREATMENT OF DISEASE. (By DR EDMUND ALLEYNE COOK in “Melbourne Herald.’’) _ About twenty-five years ago Monsieur Reno Quinton, who afterwards became Professor of Physiology at the “ College d© France,” began to make public his ideas as to the treatment of disease and animal debility. He took up some very ancient writings concerning the origin and development of the planet. Originally the world was entirely covered by water.' and surrounded by dense clouds continually dropping as rain. Therefore, said guinton, it necessarily follows that all fe in and on the planet must have existed in this water, which became the sea, must have found in sea water an essential atmosphere, and as all animal life is cellular, the health of the complex animal is dependent on the health of the cells. Science now admits that life on the planet took birth in the vast expanse of the waters which cov ered the earth’s surface. Both geology and paleontology concur in testifying to tho reality of this great fact. Quinton gathered together the known facts regarding the chemical composition .of sea water, and also investigated for himself. He found that sea water is a much more complicated thing than appearsh at first sight. By the aid of spectroscopic analysis, it has been proved to contain, besides its saline constituents, at.,least seventeen metals and metalloids. Some of them are exceeding rare and minute in quantity, and there still remain certain indications that there are other elements or emanations which affect tho liquid as a source of vitality. But the remarkable point insisted on and proved by Quinton is, that all these constituents are found in exactly tho same proportions in the fluide of the animal body—in other words, the fluid which forms upwards of 90 per cent of the blood contains in solution just those mineral substances which are found in fresh 6ea water. It is to be presumed that each of these bodies exerts some recondite influence on our cellular" life. ' TESTED IN DISPENSARY. , Quinton brought his views before the French Academy and, as is not uncommon, they were received with disbelief and contempt. Nevertheless, though not a medical man, lie established in Paris a free dispensary, and begged his medical friends and others to send to him children, diseased apparently beyontj 'possibility of recovery. Quinton purified the sea water he had obtained from depths and distant from shores, diluted it with pure water to the gravity of blood serum, and injected it into tho moribund babie3. Previously he had experimented on healthy animals. He had taken a dog and bled it white, and, when it was apparently dying, had injected his “ isotonic sea water ” in quantity equal to the lost blood, with the result that in a few minutes the animal had recovered vitality, and in a few days was far livelier and more vigorous than before treatment. On tho other hand, he had injected “ normal saline ” —the liquid which, when an animal loses much blood, is supposed to be sufficient to. replace that blood if injected into the veins—but it was not effective. The animal died. It was the sea water, and the sea water only, which held the capacity to revivify. Quinton left no stone unturned to prove this. He took some white corpuscles (the small live cell bodies of the blood) which it was known would no tlive in any fluid but tho blood plasma. He sterilised some isotonic sea water and placed werein some while corpuscles. They throve abundantly. When the extraordinary sensitiveness exhibited by the living colls to the slightest variation of the chemical medium wherein they are wont to live : s remembered, one is quite safe in considering the above evidence as final. CARRIED BY MOTHERS.

Quinton’s dispensary became too small. Ho treated 1100 children a morning, and so many regained health that mothers on one occasion waylaid him on his way to his rooms and chaired him there on their shoulders as a mark oi honour. The dispensary saved 80 per cent of its patients, and he, at length gained recognition from . tho Paris Academy o! Sciences. The facts were no longer to be ignored. Sea water contained the vital element. If it were boiled it would not act. , If it were eiaporated without heat, and the salts redissolved in pure water, it would not act, and even if it were kept too long in sterilised glass vessels it would lose its power. It was soon found that for various diseases—not in infants only—it was a splendid remedy. A dispensary was founded in Soho, London,. and opened bv . one of the Royal Princesses, *, at wliieh I saw cases of skin diseases and' bronchial and other affections successfully treated—and these cases were not trivial ailments—bub serious and! complicated troubles. 1 In France and in Britain the development of this mode of treatment has, during the war, naturally been lost sight of. • I'do not know anything of recent development, but I can state shortly my own experience of its application. LOCAL EXPERIENCE STATED.

Whenever I got full particulars regarding ' the modes of application of the remedy 'I arranged' that a sterilised bottlo\should‘ be taken on board one of the interstate steamers, to be filled with water from far. off shore and at a depth, and brought to. me here in Melbourne two or three times weekly. This wator Iso treated that it was sterile and unsnoiled. .1 caused it to be brought to me for more than six months, .and should have continued to get it but for the necessity for a prolonged journey. I obtained results which warranted the trouble and expense. In one particular case, one of severe bay fever, one injection of 5 c.c. (a large teaspoonful) produced such a chancre that the patient told me he would bring nie twenty more cases to treat if I would resume the scheme. From the experience T have bad with this remedy, relatively small as it is, I am entirely of opinion that the claims made bv Quinton and on 1113 behalf are in no way extreme When wo are, as. pow, . confronted by a more or le c s fenr-stricVen population and 'a bewildered Medical Advisory Board', would it not be well to anply the method extensively to influenza patients? Quinton has not been? with a single case .of ininrv resultine from bis- mode of procedure, nor have T experienced ono such ease, j Recent, obastlv experiences and ahe r - | tive effects with compound vaccine have left the authorities in a state of extreme dubietv as to what to advice, water needs no incubation, is easily obtained and prepared, and no long and repeated treatments' are required. Ts worthy of earnest eonsideration?

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