The experimental method in the conquest of disease / by Sir Edward Mellanby.

  • Edward Mellanby
Date:
[1939?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The experimental method in the conquest of disease / by Sir Edward Mellanby. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the bone marrow, and it is impossible for any physiologist nowadays to study the problem of bone marrow formation without taking into account the hasmopoietic action of a liver active principle. More than this, there is now good evidence that larger doses of the same liver substance which promotes restoration of the red blood cells in the case of a patient suffering from pernicious anaemia, also stops the progress of combined system disease of the spinal cord and brings about great functional improvement in early cases. Since simple anaemia of equal severity, so far as the haemoglobin content of the blood is concerned, is not associated with extensive degenera¬ tive changes in the cord, it is evident that another important physiological relation between the substance which controls red blood cell formation in the bone marrow and the structure and function of the nervous system awaits elucidation. Here again the shuttlecock is thrown back to the physiologist and experimental pathologist and it will probably be the laboratory worker who will, by the experimental method, find means of relating the processes of red blood cell maturation with the proper function¬ ing of tracts in the central nervous system. Note the sequence of events in these investigations. First, there are the clinical observations of the blood condition in the anaemias. These suggest experimental enquiry in the laboratory, which leads in turn to the acquisition of information of the stimulus given by certain foodstuffs to red blood cell and haemoglobin formation. The clinician applies this information to his anaemic patients and finds evidence of dietetic ingredients which specifically affect the maturation of red blood cells in the bone marrow. Combined laboratory and clinical work show the chemical nature of this substance. Further clinical tests demonstrate that this substance also acts directly or indirectly on the central nervous system and stops degenerative processes. The clinician is now held up by the limited means of experimental enquiry on patients at his disposal, so back comes the problem for further investigation in the laboratory. In the meantime the clinician has the satisfaction of knowing that he can now control two widely different pathological condi¬ tions—pernicious anaemia and subacute combined degeneration of the cord— two conditions always previously fatal, and in addition has indicated to the physiologist two important normal functions of the bodily organs which urgently require the further application of the experimental method. These happy results, gained by the extension of the results of animal experiment designed to throw light on a condition other than that for which they have proved to be of immense value, illustrate another impor¬ tant fact in medical research. Here is an instance where a remedy for pernicious anaemia, which makes all the difference between a healthy life and rapid and certain death, was discovered at a time when nothing of the causation and but little of the pathology of the disease were known. The same applies to other controllable diseases such as diabetes mellitus, myotonia, myasthenia gravis and, in the case of surgical treatment, enlarged and infected tonsils, appendicitis and exophthalmic goitre. Know¬ ledge of the causes of these diseases is very small and yet they can be
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