On the Trail of "Stevens' Cure"
by Bruce Tober
Copyright © 2004 Bruce Tober All Rights
Reserved
| One of the most fascinating recent acquisitions we've made was two related
books with the unlikely titles of, The Treatment of Pulmonary
and Surgical Tuberculosis with Umckaloabo - Internal Medication (Stevens' Cure) by Adrien Sechehaye and translated from the French by Miss A H Grant, and Tuberculosis - Its Treatment and Cure with the Help of Umckaloabo by "an English Physician M.R.C.S. (Eng.), L.R.C.P. (Lond, 1893)". |
The Treatment of Pulmonary... Tuberculosis - Its Treatment...
|
Taken together, these two volumes detail the amazing story of Dr Charles
H Stevens and his secret herbal Tuberculosis (TB) cure. Within a few days of acquiring them, Dr Stevens' grandson
bought the set. He'd been looking for them for quite some time, having remembered seeing them in his grandparents'
home during his childhood.
The Guardian
newspaper recently wrote of the events, "Charles Stevens was bankrupted when he tried to sue the British Medical
Association (BMA) after it denounced [in 1912] his TB treatment as a fake and himself a swindler." Stevens'
treatment was sold as "Stevens' Consumption Cure". Stevens was "devastated, his factory closed and
the TB remedy was lost."
Tuberculosis, according to the Spartacus Educational website, "was
first identified in Ancient Greece. The tubercle germ attacks the whole body but usually settles in the lungs.
Tuberculosis causes a breaking down of the normal lung tissue and in the 19th century was responsible for about
25 per cent of all deaths in Britain. At that time it was generally known as consumption. The cause of the disease
was discovered in 1882 and this enabled a vaccine to be developed. If a person does catch tuberculosis today it
can usually be treated successfully with antibiotics.
The Umckaloabo, which formed the basis of Stevens' Cure, is a South
African geranium.
Potions? Cures?
But now, nearly a century later, The
Guardian continued, "scientists are investigating ...
Stevens' Consumption Cure and other discredited patent potions ... from the past, in the hope that they may hold
the key to medical miracles of the future."
Dr Taylor |
For example, now, nearly a century on from the destruction of "Stevens'
Cure", Dr
Peter Taylor, a reader in pharmaceutical microbiology at London University's School of Pharmacy, is back on the case of the geranium. Because incidence of TB in the UK has
risen steadily in the last decade, and has developed resistance to many antibiotics, Taylor and others are re-opening
the history books in an attempt to track down new old remedies. |
He explains that either a new antibiotic or an entirely new kind of
drug is needed to fight the resurgent TB and other infectious diseases which have developed antibiotic resistance.
His research is being funded by the Wellcome
Trust.
"There is an urgent need for new treatments to combat tuberculosis,"
says Taylor. "We have about six different drugs that work well against Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and these
are usually given in combination to try and stop multiple resistance arising. But this has not been entirely successful
and resistance is becoming an increasing problem."
Taylor's research shows that Stevens contracted TB in 1897 at the age
of 17. Incurable at that time, the young man travelled to South Africa where he met a 'witch doctor' who brewed
up a traditional cure for lung problems from roots. Reportedly he recovered and brought supplies of the plant,
Umckaloabo, back to England, where he used them to manufacture his own version of the "witch's" brew
remedy. His miracle cure brought him widespread acclaim in the early 1900s.
What Goes Around, Comes Around
But the BMA wasn't much taken with such things and in 1909 in an inquiry
that attempted to subject patent therapies to - then rudimentary - scientific analysis, Stevens and his "cure"
were vilified. "Stevens sued for libel but, despite case histories of patients apparently cured by his treatment,
lost his case and had to pay punishing costs of £2,000... Stevens was ruined and his remedy discredited."
Taylor however, discovered that a Swiss physician (Sechehaye) experimented
with Stevens' recipe in the 1930s and reported significant success. "There is wonderful anecdotal evidence
that it works," Taylor explains. The remedy is still sold in Germany and Russia to combat common colds and
other respiratory infections, but nowhere is it used for TB.
Taylor and his colleagues isolated the active components of the plant and found several promising compounds which
act on bacteria similar to TB. He says that if further tests prove successful, Umckaloabo, or a derivative of its
active component, could go forward to clinical trials and "Stevens' Cure" might be available again in
as little as six or seven years.
|