Read Online Dr. Feelgood by Richard A. Lertzman, William J. Birnes - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Richard A. Lertzman, William J. Birnes
Ads: Link
nevertheless convinced him that what he really wanted to practice was internal medicine. He said that he believed he could bring about more healing that way. Surgery in the 1920s was quite dangerous because of the side effects of anesthesia and the risk of infection. Infection was so insidious that despite the best efforts of hospital operating rooms to maintain sanitary conditions, infections were rampant and difficult to prevent or control. Surgery, although preferred as a specialty by many new physicians in Europe, was limited by the conditions at hospitals. Therefore, Max Jacobson, who was fascinated by the body’s own biological chemistry, decided that his specialty would be internal medicine. Following the education he received at the feet of his first mentor, Dr. Bier, Jacobson began his own practice at the Charité University Hospital in Berlin, which is still one of the largest hospitals in the world. He assembled a specially designed laboratory in his private office, where his experiments included an investigation into the changes in blood chemistry through the use of choline, the basic component for the neuro-transmitter acetylcholine; Belafoline, a drug used in the treatment of migraines or severe headaches; and ergotomin (or gynergen), a blood constrictor also used to alleviate pain. Jacobson published his scientific study of gynergen and its use in gynecology and migraines, and in the treatment of the confusion caused by cerebral sclerosis. He also continued his lifelong practice of testing drugs on himself, because he admired doctors who did so to learn their side effects. 17
Because Germany was still dealing with soldiers who’d lost limbs and whose internal organs were deteriorating from diseases they’d contracted at the front, doctors by the late 1920s were researching the methods of transplanting organs—and particularly the rejection of transplants. Skin transplants were also an issue because so many soldiers had suffered from disfiguring burns and burns that had become infected. Doctors also looked for ways to remove scar tissue without re-infecting a wound. Max was one of the early experimenters, using the blood serum from animals to prevent immune rejection to hetero-skin transplants. He injected guinea pigs with extracts of skin and feathers. He found that he was able to keep skin transplants for as much as one-third of the animal’s surface in place for months at a time. The chemicals from feathers and skin helped destroy the toxins in cells and formed the basis of Max’s later experiments with treating malignant growths that developed into tumors. Max believed that his concoctions of animal blood serum enabled him to control the symptoms of high blood pressure as well as detoxification of infections. Based on this research, Max thought he had found a way to remediate the symptoms of some types of neurosis as he experimented with the physiological basis of mental illness. These experiments, particularly experiments in refining animal blood serum and combining it with pharmaceuticals to be injected intravenously, would ultimately become the basis for Max’s injections of liquid methamphetamines mixed with goat’s and sheep’s blood for boosting his patient’s abilities to withstand stress and rise above the difficulties in their lives. In other words, Max was looking for ways to get his patients high enough to slough off whatever was troubling them, even if what was troubling them were progressive diseases that could not be cured.
Deciding to become an internist rather than a surgeon at Charité University Hospital, Jacobson began more intensely studying the effects of his methamphetamine mixtures on both himself and his patients. He worked in the laboratories at Charité to create his own special formula that would allow his patients to “feel good.” But as Dr. Leslie Iversen, the author of Speed, Ecstasy, Ritalin: The Science of Amphetamines , 4 points out, Jacobson’s “mistake was
Because Germany was still dealing with soldiers who’d lost limbs and whose internal organs were deteriorating from diseases they’d contracted at the front, doctors by the late 1920s were researching the methods of transplanting organs—and particularly the rejection of transplants. Skin transplants were also an issue because so many soldiers had suffered from disfiguring burns and burns that had become infected. Doctors also looked for ways to remove scar tissue without re-infecting a wound. Max was one of the early experimenters, using the blood serum from animals to prevent immune rejection to hetero-skin transplants. He injected guinea pigs with extracts of skin and feathers. He found that he was able to keep skin transplants for as much as one-third of the animal’s surface in place for months at a time. The chemicals from feathers and skin helped destroy the toxins in cells and formed the basis of Max’s later experiments with treating malignant growths that developed into tumors. Max believed that his concoctions of animal blood serum enabled him to control the symptoms of high blood pressure as well as detoxification of infections. Based on this research, Max thought he had found a way to remediate the symptoms of some types of neurosis as he experimented with the physiological basis of mental illness. These experiments, particularly experiments in refining animal blood serum and combining it with pharmaceuticals to be injected intravenously, would ultimately become the basis for Max’s injections of liquid methamphetamines mixed with goat’s and sheep’s blood for boosting his patient’s abilities to withstand stress and rise above the difficulties in their lives. In other words, Max was looking for ways to get his patients high enough to slough off whatever was troubling them, even if what was troubling them were progressive diseases that could not be cured.
Deciding to become an internist rather than a surgeon at Charité University Hospital, Jacobson began more intensely studying the effects of his methamphetamine mixtures on both himself and his patients. He worked in the laboratories at Charité to create his own special formula that would allow his patients to “feel good.” But as Dr. Leslie Iversen, the author of Speed, Ecstasy, Ritalin: The Science of Amphetamines , 4 points out, Jacobson’s “mistake was
Similar Books
