The Prolongation Of Life by Élie Metchnikoff

Author:Élie Metchnikoff [Metchnikoff, Élie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

Dr. Pochon, assistant to Professor Combe 134 at Lausanne, has repeated on himself the experiments of Cohendy. He took for several weeks milk curdled with pure cultures of lactic acid microbes and obtained “results that were quite definite as to intestinal putrefaction.” Analysis of his urine showed that there was a marked diminution of indol and phenol, substances which are certain indexes of intestinal putrefaction.

In addition to such observations on lactic bacilli there is a good deal of knowledge as to the effect of lactic acid taken in bulk. The result of the various observations 135 shows that the acid lessens intestinal putrefaction and lowers the quantity of sulpho-conjugate ethers in the urine. This fact explains why favourable results follow the use of lactic acid in many intestinal diseases such as infantile diarrhœa, tuberculous enteritis and even Asiatic cholera. The addition of this remedy to practical therapeutics is due chiefly to Professor Hayem. It is employed not only in the treatment of diseases of the digestive system (dyspepsia, enteritis and colitis), but is indicated also in diabetes and is used locally in tuberculous ulcerations of the larynx. As quantities up to twelve grams can be given by the mouth daily, it is plain that the system is tolerant of this acid. It is either oxidised in the tissues or excreted with the urine. In the case of a diabetic woman who had taken 80 grams of lactic acid in four days, Nencki and Sieber 136 found no traces of it in the urine. On the other hand, Stadelmann 137 found a notable quantity of the acid in another diabetic patient who had been taking over four grams daily.

The general interpretation of the benefits gained from the use of lactic acid ferments is that they depend solely on the action of the lactic acid which they produce in preventing the multiplication of the microbes which cause putrefaction. Recent investigations made by Dr. Bélonowsky, at the Pasteur Institute, show that a lactic ferment isolated from yahourth and described as the Bulgarian bacillus owes its antiseptic powers not only to lactic acid but to another substance which it secretes. Dr. Bélonowsky has studied the effects of this bacillus upon mice, by adding to their previously sterilised food quantities of this lactic microbe. As control experiments he fed other mice on food to which lactic acid had been added in quantities corresponding to the quantity produced by the Bulgarian bacillus, or which had been mixed with other kinds of bacilli. Another set of mice were given normal food without the addition of either microbes or lactic acid.

Out of these groups of mice, those which had been given the Bulgarian bacillus thrived best and had most progeny. Their droppings showed fewest microbes, particularly microbes of putrefaction.

The next stage in Dr. Bélonowsky’s experiments was to feed mice not with living quantities of the Bulgarian bacillus, but with cultures which had been sterilised by heat (120°-140° Fahr.). These mice lived as well as those to which living cultures had been supplied, and notably better than those supplied with pure lactic acid.

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