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H3 AND GASTROINTESTINAL HEALTH - Chapter 22
All patients treated with procaine have a markedly better appetite which, of course, may be an indirect result of their increased vitality. Procaine also seems to
have a normalizing influence on the intestinal flora, but this has not yet been sufficiently investigated to allow any positive claims.
Ulcers
The most successful use of procaine in this area has
been in the treatment of stomach and duodenal ulcers. Usually six intravenous injections suffice to stop the pain, and the ulcers themselves disappear after 24 injections, in most cases permanently. Only one of the Institute's ulcer patients had to be operated upon, and this proved to be for a calloused ulcer. Procaine therapy in ulcers was first recommended more than five decades ago, mainly by French and Belgian physicians. It is thought that the involuntary nervous system is affected by procaine, which in turn influences the etiology of ulcers.
Professor Aslan's chief assistant, Dr. Cornel David, reports that he himself had been suffering from gastric
ulcers, which became completely quiescent after only five injections. In order to prevent recurrence, the Institute recommends that former ulcer patients undergo
a prophylactic series of injections each spring and fall. Prof. AsIan's therapy is merely a rediscovery in this case as well. It was reported in the literature as far back as fifty years ago that up to two-thirds of all gastric ulcers were cured by use of procaine, as evidenced by X-ray data.
The Soviet researcher N. K. Gorbadei, reporting on procaine treatment of 171 patients with gastric ulcers, tells of rapid relief from the pain of the ulcer, normalization of the secretory and motor activity of the gastrointestinal tract, and disappearance of the dyspepsia. Objective evidence of the value of the treatment was found by X-ray, electrocardiographic, and plethysmographic findings.
A typical case history cited by Dr. Gorbadei tells of
a female patient, aged 48 years, who was admitted to the hospital in 1954. The diagnosis was an acute stage of peptic ulceration, gastritis, and periduodenitis. She had been ill since 1951. X-ray examination on admission showed a duodenal ulcer crater measuring 0.3 X 0.3 cm, which was tender on being touched. After the fifth intra-arterial infusion of procaine, the patient was completely free from pains in the stomach, flatulence, heartburn, nausea and vomiting; her appetite improved, and the constipation, which had previously affiicted her for five to six days at a time, was relieved. During this time she gained over four pounds in weight.
One month later, further fluoroscopy and radiography of this patient showed no ulcer.
On the basis of more than 5000 intra-arterial
infusions of procaine into the femoral arteries, Dr. Gorbadei and his co-workers consider that this technique is safe, simple, and more effective in the treatment of ulcers than the administration of procaine by any other method.
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H3 Book Index:: Chapters 1-29
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