DR. ABRAMS AND HIS BOX
SOME years ago a well-known San Francisco prac- titioner, Dr. Abrams by name, astonished his many patients, and still more astonished his colleagues, by inviting them to send him specimens of their blood in order that he might diagnose the diseases from which they might be suffering. Dr. Abrams was able, it appeared, to tell exactly the disease from which anybody was suffering merely from a drop of blood sent to him on blotting paper through the post. True, his diagnosis usually differed completely from that of the patient's own doctor or from anything the patient had thought about himself. But then Dr. Abrams laid it down as a principle that all other methods of diagnosis were hopelessly faulty. Later, however, Dr. Abrams, though not revealing the principle on which he was working, allowed others to use his method by presenting for sale his diagnostic apparatus in a sealed box.
Diagnosis, however, is but the first step. Soon Dr. Abrams followed his first apparatus with another which, once the nature of the disease had been determined, could effect a cure. These two instruments were based, it now turns out, on a curious principle. A drop of the patient's blood was placed in an electric current ; by some method the " electric vibrations " were detected and a number was assigned to them. It was suggested that if the drop of blood was from a person suffering from cancer the vibrations would be at the rate 14 (for example), if from diabetes at the rate 10. The disease having thus been ascertained, the cure was to subject the diabetes patient to the vibrations of the rate 10 and the cancer patients to the rate 14, on the principle of similia similibus curantur.
Now, there is no reason to suppose that this is not all as great nonsense as it sounds. Indeed, there is a large body of evidence to show that it is. Dr. Abrams, who is now dead, and his successors have been several times submitted to tests. For instance, the blood of a healthy male rabbit was sent to him and he informed the senders that it came from a woman suffering from cancer. It does not, of course, affect the question that a number of people have derived considerable benefit from the treatment. Any new and mysterious process is always able to effect " cures " from the sheer force of suggestion. (The moral of which seems to be that doctors should consistently change their technique and their apparatus !) If it is still desired to test the Abrams " cure " the most obvious way would be to take some animal admittedly suffering from, say, cancer and apply the Abrams treatment to it, because after all you cannot suggest a cure to a rat ! But as it seems that every independent observer has come to the conclusion that Dr. Abrams' therapeutic and diagnostic claims are without foundation, it may be hardly worth while to apply further tests. If the matter had ended there it would have no more interest than many another medical " stunt."
- But it did not. Some time ago an authoritative committee under the chairmanship of Sir Thomas Horder was appointed to investigate the Dr. Abrams claims and more especially the improved apparatus of Dr. Boyd, his pupil in this country. The committee came to the expected conclusion that there was no foundation for the claim that the apparatus had any diagnostic or therapeutic value. But this was not all. During the process of applying the Abrams apparatus a healthy person is attached to an electric circuit in which is a drop of the patient's blood. It is claimed that certain " electric reactions " occur in the healthy person. His abdomen gives out a different sound when tapped and a flush appears on his skin. And this claim Sir Thomas Horder's Committee, in complete disagree- ment with American investigations, substantiates. The report says :-
" Certain substances when placed in proper relation to the omanometer of Boyd produce, beyond any reasonable doubt, changes in the abdominal wall of the subject of a kind which may be detected by percusSion. This is tantamount to the statement that the fundamental proposition underlying in common the original and certain other forms of apparatus designed for the purpose of eliciting the so-called electronic reactions of Abrams is established to a very high degree of probability."
This is indeed a very remarkable finding. It amounts to saying that Dr. Abrams did stumble on some strange and unexplained phenomenon which may be of great scientific interest. The fact that he attempted to exploit his discovery for medical purposes before he or anyone else understood its real nature should not blind, and has not blinded, the committee of investigation to the importance of the discovery itself. More than this it seems impossible to say at the moment and we can only await further developments.
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