Medicine: Shock for Strangulation

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Insulin shock, already used to snap schizophrenics and morphine addicts back to normal, may be a cure for bronchial asthma. In the current British Medical Journal, Dr. Z. Godlowski of the Polish Medical School in Edinburgh reports seven out of eight successes.

He injected insulin into eight half-strangled asthmatics, repeatedly throwing them into tremors, convulsions and even unconsciousness. Recovering from the series of paroxysms, seven found "complete disappearance of symptoms to the present time—i.e., from eight months to 2% years." The eighth was relieved for five months, then relapsed. All the cured asthmatics were allergy victims (cases of non-allergic asthma were not helped at all by shock).

Probable explanation of the cure: the shock permanently increases the output and even the size of the adrenal glands, pouring greater amounts of adrenaline into the patient's blood to relax his constricted bronchial muscles.