7. Long period electrozation of pulmonary phthisis

There were many tubercular patients who had been left lying on bed for many years without any hope of recovery in Tokyo National Chest Hospital. Their pulmonary diseases were serious, refractory to the chemical therapy, and no medicines for tuberculosis were being applied for them. Nerertheless, they had had strong desires for long life.

In 1958, I started my experiment on the long period electrization of those tubercular patients, because they were willing to cooperate, and were suitable for the purpose.

First I inserted cathode plate in the pyothorax and fixed the anode plate on the foot or hand of the patient and applied direct current from 9 volt battery as shown on Fig 7[not given]. Later I dropped the voltage to 3 volts and finally used 1.5 volt battery mostly. I assume the net voltage within the body would be approximately 2/3 of the applied voltage, and I found the running current through the body was approximately 0.1 - 0.3 milliampere. I applied 4 to 12 hours of the electrization to each patient per day and obtained certain result of the experiment on the pyothorax patient about a week after.

Next I tried the same test on the large cavity patients. I inserted the cathode plate inside of the large cavity of the patients as shown on Fig 7[not given]. It was technically difficult to insert soft metallic cathode plate in an accurate position of the cavity piercing through the skin. After 2 to 4weeks of continuous expermment, I found a remarkable result. Majority of cavities that were entirely refractory to the chemicaletherapy became smaller and some one disappeared entirely.

However, I could not overlook the fact that some cavities were enlarged in their sizes,. The caseous materials in the cavity turned to SOL(Colloidal State) from GEL (Gellatine State) as shown on Fig 8[not given]. From the standpoint of colloidal chemistry this phenomenon can be called "Repeptisation".

On the contrary, I found the caseous materials lost the moisture and have shown the tendency of hardening or solidifying in some cases.

These results from the experiments had been found much later by the chest operation and gave me confidence that this phenomenon is due to electrochemical reaction and not due to the electric stimulation.

As the third method, I wrapped both electrodes with stupe and placed them on the surface of skin of chest so that straight line between the two electrodes will pass through center of the cavity of the patient as shown on Fig 7 (1- 3)[not given]. The electrization was applied on the cavity every day same as previous method. After two weeks, I found practically the same result as shown on Fig 7 (B - C)[not given].

This method did not give any pain to the patients, and from that time on I have applied only this method for some 200 clinical patients. It is significant that the electric current passing through the body from skin to skin has strong effect on the spot of diseases located deeply inside of the body.

In this case, the effect of the electric current on the disease can be considered as the result of electrochemical reaction without giving nervous disturbance to the patient.

When the test was continued for a month or longer, I found that metal of anodes (silver or copper) had melted, passed through the body and changed the color of the stupe of the cathodes. This is the proof that the electrochemical reaction or electroplating process was taken place using the living body as a chemical solution or an electroplating bath. When a long period electrization is applied to a living body, the electric resistance of the body changes gradually and finally it breaks the cell membrane, especeally at the part of the body, nearest to or contacted to the electrodes, turns to a colloidal form.

If the electromotive force of 1.5 volts, which is less than that can decompose the water, is applied to a human body for 2 to 3 days continuously, it will make 3rd class burn to the skin. This indicates that the cell membrane is very weak or sensitive even to the low voltage electrization when it is applied for long period continuously, and integrated. On the contrary, same amount of energy is applied to the body in relatively short period, it will give little effect on the skin. This phenomenon may due to the fact that the human body is composed of highly complicated materials.

The effect of small amount of electric energr to the human body, especially when it is applied in long period and integrated would be an important problem to be studied in the future in the field of biological a.nd electrochemical sciences.

In the 1968 Meeting of the Cancer Medical Treatment Society of Japan, there was a report commenting that the "Self-control nerve system may have some relation to the progress of the cancer of the stomach". It was quite interesting to know that the nerve controls the information and governs the effect of a minute electric energy in the human body.

From the result, I can assume that an integrated amount of very wellcontrolled small electric energies is more effective for curative means than the destructive high voltage electric energy to the human body.

It is a well known fact that the development of an entire living body is affected in varying degrees by the low potential electric energy, and the study of application of the low potential electric energy to the human body for curative means, seems to me, one of the important problems.