Word: trypsin
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...then came a time when hormones held the center of the medical stage. Next, thought some enthusiastic researchers, would come the age of enzymes-some of nature's complex chemicals which act as catalysts in countless physiological reactions. A star among the enzymes was expected to be trypsin, secreted by the pancreas. It was known to dissolve dead tissue around wounds, but a team of Manhattan researchers led by Dr. Irving Innerfield made far more dramatic claims...
...A.M.A. Journal has published a full-dress report by Innerfield & Co., and the argument is on. Other researchers using similar methods have tried to duplicate Dr. Innerfield's results and have failed utterly. In fact, say some, trypsin is too dangerous to be used at all in many of the cases for which Dr. Innerfield recommends...
Last week two teams of doctors described chemicals that are as efficient as maggots at digesting dead tissue and other waste matter-not only in surface but in internal diseases. One is an extract from the pancreas, called trypsin, reported by Drs. Howard Reiser, Richard Patton and L. C. Roettig of Ohio State University. Trypsin, an enzyme often found in the excretions of maggots, has already proved itself valuable in cleaning out dead cells and pus in the chests of tuberculous patients (TIME, Nov. 6). "Its use in war wounds," said the Ohio doctors last week after a year...
...American College of Surgeons, meeting in Boston, heard of a chemical attack on tuberculous empyema which may make surgery unnecessary for some patients, more effective for others. Drs. Louis C. Roettig and Howard G. Reiser of Ohio State University's College of Medicine reported on a treatment using trypsin. An enzyme (one of the body's mysterious chemical catalysts), trypsin dissolves dead tissue, but seems to leave the living tissue in the chest unharmed...
Injected into the infected chest cavity of six patients, trypsin produced good results in four by dissolving the mass of pus and sterilizing the cavity. In two cases where trypsin failed, the empyema was of long standing and the cavity walls had become rigid. Roettig and Reiser recommended further trial for the promising technique...