Therapy: Psychic Surgery

The American Medical Association has been warring against questionable treatment ever since the group was founded in 1847. Yet the battle is endless and so far from being won that this month the A.M.A. convened what it called a national conference on quackery in Chicago.* The A.M.A.'s president-elect, Manhattan's Dr. Gerald D. Dorman, sadly reported that if today's Americans cannot find the quacks they want in the U.S., they will go halfway around the world for them.

Just a year ago, Dorman said, 108 Americans and two Canadians chartered a plane and flew to Baguio, summer capital of the Philippines. They were seeking "psychic surgery" at the hands of Antonio Agpaoa, who styles himself "Dr. Tony." Where Agpaoa ever picked up the title of Dr. is unclear; he is a school dropout (at the third grade) and, said Dorman, is a former sleight-of-hand artist. He claims that he can perform abdominal, heart and even brain surgery with his bare hands, using no anesthesia or aseptic precautions. He also claims that he can close the surgical opening without leaving a scar, which is perfectly logical, since his laying on of hands actually involves no opening.

Even more disturbing to Dorman is the fact that when "Dr. Tony" visited the U.S. in 1967 to drum up trade, he was able to address meetings in hotels, churches "and other respectable locations," and showed his movies at a TV-industry convention. The Philippine Board of Medical Examiners has asked the courts to enjoin Agpaoa from "illegally practicing medicine." But he has imitators.

From Unborn Lambs. In Europe, said Dorman, the "rejuvenators" hold forth, promising to "make you young again" or revitalize a "wornout" part of the body. He cited Rumania's Dr. Anna Asian, who claims to restore senile and decrepit patients with injections of procaine (Novocain) and vitamins. American patients have tried the treatment with no medically provable benefits. If Asian's claims were true, says Dr. Nathan Shock of the National Institutes of Health, "you'd be adding ten years to your life every time the dentist filled a tooth."

In Switzerland, Professor Paul Niehans attracts wealthy Americans and Europeans alike* with his "cellular therapy," in which embryonic cells from the organs of unborn lambs are injected (TIME, Aug. 31, 1959). Niehans is hardly in the same league with some of the practitioners cited by Dorman; he is a licensed physician with the proper credentials and an impressive personality. He carefully selects patients who are likely to respond to his treatment, which includes rest, good care and good food, and excludes liquor and tobacco. That is enough to insure that many will feel better. But there is no scientific evidence that his cellular treatment has any value, said Dorman, and of course any injection of foreign protein could cause a bad reaction.