KEEPING OLD ACE AT BAY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 11 April 1922, Page 1

KEEPING OLD ACE AT BAY

BY A SURGKON' IN DAILY; MAIL

Tiie nows from the United States that Dr Harry Benjamin has introduced there Dr Stomach's rejuvenation operation appears to have caused a sensation. But Steinach himself announced his discovery to the world in 1920 after careful research and trials lasting over several years. Since then several of the leading surgeons in Germany and Aus*. tria have been performing the operation with universal success/ • Steinach’s- work MHld, field started long before the Great War by experiments on male rats. He took rats whose length ot life averages 27 to 30 months. Senility begins at from 18 to 23 months and very few live to be older than3o months. The signs of senility are easily recognised and include loss of hair, listlessness and ■ Jack of interet in the surroundings, loss of playfulness and pugnacity, reduction in weight, depressed carriage of. the head and body, disregard for cleanliness, the presence of body parasites, and absolute lack of interest in the female. ■'Stomach tied the sperm duct leading from the rat’s puberal gland on . one side of the body. Within a month the animal was transformed. It had a new coat of fur. It held its head erect and was interested in ita environment. It fought bravely with, other males, played with voung females, rid itself of lice, and showed a renewed regard for cleanliness. This experiment was repeated in hundreds of cases and the results checked by comparison of the rejuvenated animals with brothers from the Same lit-, 1 ter. i ■. The rejuvenated animals survived./up to the age of 35 months or more and then gradually a second senility. Supervened and death ensued. This: represents im increase of at least 16 per cent, on the rat’s ordinary span of life. (If applied to man it would represent an addition of about ten years,) In 1918 the great surgeon Lichtenstern, of Vienna, applied Steinach’s results to human beings by performing the operation on a man. Since then, ha has done over 60 cases (as he informed! me in a personal communication last October) without r a single case of failure. Drs. Peter Schmidt, Levy-Lenz, Muhsam, and many other surgeons throughout Germany have also performed the operation, successfully in many cases, and their results have been reported in the leading German and Austrian medical journals. The operation is simple and can be performed, under local anaesthesia if necessary, in about a quarter of an hour. Only a few days’ rest in bed is required, and the patient suffers scarcely more inconvenience than after the ex« traction of teeth. There is nothing miraculous or mysterious about the matter. More and more scientists are recognising how much our health depends on the correct functioning of our “ductless glands," of which tho thyroid is perhaps best known to the public. If tho thyroid gland is inactive the unfortunate person to whom it belongs is a cretin—dull, stupid, and scarcely better than a vegetable. If the pituitary gland is disordered there may result a giant or a dwarf. Now it was found that when old ag& comes on tho “puberal glands” 'Were not working actively. The tying of the sperm duct stimulates the* puberal! glands to renewed activity, and thei general health and vigour of the patient are renewed.