H3 Book Index:: Chapters 1-29
Not unexpectedly, medical scientists in the Soviet Union have conducted some valuable research into the properties of procaine. In an article in Geriatrics, recently deceased Prof. Chauncey Leake, a former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, reported:
"When I was in Leningrad and Moscow in 1956, I discussed the trophic action of procaine with several experimental workers in the physiology research laboratories in these cities. However, I was not impressed at the time that there was anything very significant in these studies except that intramuscular injections of procaine seemed to have some benefit in experi
mental arthritis and perhaps in certain experimental stress
conditions. ..
Soviet researchers, naturally, showed a lively interest in Prof. AsIan's work. Theirs has been a steady search for means of rejuvenation, but neither Voronoff (who worked outside of the Soviet Union), Bogomolets, nor Olga Lepechinskaya had any success with their ideas. The procaine therapy was given a great deal of publicity in the Soviet Union, and now there have been several hospitals and old age homes where the treatment
was used, in particular at the Geriatric Institute in Kiev.
In Moscow, in 1955, Yu. F. Udalov conducted some experiments with white rats which may have significance not only in geriatrics, but in aviation and space medicine, as well as in prevention of the 'bends' suffered by underwater workers who surface too rapidly.
In U dalov' s experiments, rats which had been given procaine injections in the neck and in the abdominal cavity (as well as rats which had received no injections) were 'lifted' in a baro-cham ber at a speed of 67 miles per hour, to an atmosphere as thin as the atmosphere 6% miles above the earth. The rats were left in this 'atmosphere' for 10 minutes. Six of the 23 control rats
died, but only two of the 25 procaine-treated animals. The author then found that rats given a large dose of
para-aminobenzoic acid in their food the day before being subjected to these simulated high altitude conditions also had twice the survival rate of rats which had not received this vitamin. Apparently this vitamin component of procain increases the resistance of the body to oxygen insufficiency.
An article in the Russian journal Farmakologiia i Toksilkoiogiia (Pharmacology and Toxicology) entitled "Changes in the motor and secretory gastric functions following intravenous injection of procaine" indicates the Soviet interest in this therapy for treatment of gastric ulcers. The article ends with the following summary:
1. Intravenous injection of GH3 depresses or eliminates gastric peristalsis and the periodic contractions of the stomach under starvation conditions; it also depresses the can tractions of the duodenum.
2. Procaine depresses the gastric secretion, particularly in the first 3-hour period and often extending into the second
period. Following injection of procaine, the latent period of gastric secretion was increased in most of the experiments. Procaine also depressed the pancreatic secretion.
3. The acid-forming function of the stomach underwent various changes under the influence of procaine, more often than not increasing.
4. Depression of the conditioned reflex of the gastric motor system after a series of intravenous injections of procaine combined with strictly controlled, fixed conditions of experiment indicated the role played by the cerebral cortex in the mechanism of action of procaine.
In addition to their interest in applications of procaine .n treatment of gastric disturbances, Soviet researchers 1Iso are reporting on applications of this drug in treatnent of diseases of the nervous and vascular systems, urunculosis, and bronchial asthma.
The Russian scientists seem to give Prof. Aslan full credit for originating the application of procaine in the general therapy of the condition which we know as 'old age."
Among the Soviet visitors to the Bucharest Institute, Prof. M. G. Durmishyan, of the Academy of Sciences
)f the USSR, wrote in Prof. Asian's guest book:
.. After my own investigation, I am able to say that the doubts I may have had before coming here have completely vanished."
Professor K. M. Bykov, former head of the famous Pavlov Institute in Leningrad, expressed himself in the guest book as follows:
"With enormous interest I saw the work of the Institute and of ProŁ AsIan concerning a problem which has been studied for a long time, and [the solution of which] could revolutionize mankind. I believe that Prof. AsIan and her assistants have found a valid method of maintaining a normal state of activity of the nervous system and thus of all organs, and of prolonging the normal functions of the cellular system of the human body.
The administration of procaine, which has the properties of stimulating and inhibiting, as well as the method of giving these injections, are new, original and very promising. Personally, I am convinced of the success of Prof. AsIan's method in vitalizing aging organisms."
The intensity of the research being conducted in the USSR on the applications and mechanism of action of
procaine is indicated by the fact that in 1958 a Russian book on treatment of gastric ulcers, bronchial asthma and angina pectoris cites the work of sixteen centers. This research dates back to 1948, and a literature reference shows that the author was familiar with the work being done in Bucharest at least a year before Western medical scientists had heard of it.
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H3 Book Index:: Chapters 1-29
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