January 3, 1921 Letter To Carl Ellis

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Back to Gregory Parkhurst January 1931 Personal Letters

Parkhurst Institute For Medical Research 1950 Water Road Buffalo, New York

January 3, 1931

Mr. Carl Ellis Whispers Estate Chalone-Sur-Saone France

Dear Mr. Ellis;

Enclosed please find the completed budgetary review for our just concluded year of 1930, and our projected needs for the coming year of 1931.

I am pleased also to include our medical data that indicates the current progress made in the areas of research funded in the past years. Copies of these materials have been also forwarded per our agreement with the other principals - Mr. Weiss care of Chalone-Sur-Saone, and Dr. Cromwell, in Lyon.

First, and again, I would like to thank you and the other principals for your continued financial support and for access to biological resources that have contributed significantly to our progress. It has also allowed us to branch out further, and to begin to offer some small services to those who are now suffering through no fault of their own. While I understand that perhaps this was not your original intent in helping to found the Institute - I felt that you would not object if our medical staff opened our doors to help in a small way those who can no longer afford the services of a doctor.

If this is an unwarranted use of the funds provided to us, I will take full responsibility for the decision, and will take steps to insure that the Institute is reimbursed.

There is a great deal of good news. Our focus for the last year and a half has been to determine the nature of the illness, and to cure or at least mitigate the symptoms and advance of the disease.

From my previous reports to you, you are aware that once the infection reaches a critical stage within the patient, there is no means of removing or attempting a cure that does not result in the death of the subject.

With the shift and mutation of the disease causing agent this past year, we have been able to conclude testing that appears to offer an alternative to the subjects as to the control of the symptoms of the disease. The very mutation that appears to have evolved to allow the causal agent to become more resistant has also allowed us to find the key that did not exist before to alleviate the symptoms.

The documentation enclosed here details the medical procedures and processes necessary to replicate my work. With the proper biological materials, it is a simple process to culture the basis for the serum in living animals. Due to ethical concerns, I have not pursued the possibility of culturing the serum in human subjects. There is some theoretical data to suggest that the serum so cultured would be more potent, and perhaps free of the side effects that occur.

In summary:

1. The serum must be cultured in living animals - we have had the most success with primates -- perhaps due to their close biological relation to man. In primates the serum required less purification, and produced a higher volume of serum. The purification process is simple, and can be preformed even by non-medical personal. Typically a primate (our animals were spider monkeys) once fully engaged with the biological material was capable of producing enough serum weekly to meet the needs of two to three patients on a regular basis.

2. Other experimental animals used in culturing the serum, included laboratory rats and mice, rabbits, dogs, and goats. During the course of our experimentation we found that the optimal animal for serum reproduction other than primates were rabbits. Which produced a serum lower in both quantity and quality, which required further filtration in conjunction with processing in order to be effective. This further processing is also simple enough that it can be performed by non-medical personal. Typically a rabbit once fully engaged with the biological material was capable of producing enough serum weekly to meet the needs of a single patient on a regular basis.

3. Serum cultured in experimental animals, is unfortunately highly perishable, and must be administered through inoculation within two hours of preparation for maximum effectiveness. The serum degrades quickly after two hours, and beyond three hours turns into a virulent poison.

4. The serum is effective in preventing the symptoms of the disease from reasserting itself for a period of about 90 - 100 hours after inoculation. Variants in the time factor depend on body weight of the patient, the length of time that the patient has been infected, the type of animal used in culturation, and the purity and strength of the serum.

5. Patients treated with the serum lose entirely their need and/or desire to ingest blood (either animal or human) in order to stem the progress of the disease.

6. The serum is not a cure, rather a replacement for the need to ingest blood, therefore repeated and continual dosages of the serum are required to maintain life.

7. After administering the serum exclusively for a period of six months, it was discovered that blood (both human and animal) became poisonous to the patient's system. We have not yet concluded studies to determine if a gradual withdrawal of the serum will alter the progress of the disease to allow the patient to return to the ingestion of blood. While the focus of the research is to free the patients from the need to ingest blood - concerns on that point were raised by the patients participating in the experimental trials.

8. There is a small, but measurable diminishment of acuity of senses with exclusive use of the serum. Patients reported that this reduction of sensorium was not life threatening, and easily adapted to within a period of a few weeks.

While the serum does not offer the cure that we sought originally, it does offer a more acceptable means of allowing the patients to manage the symptoms of their disease than they did previously. Further research may allow us to entirely eliminate the side effects of the serum. Our studies have not advanced further than the last nine months, to indicate that there are any further long term effects from using the serum exclusively.

Nor have we been able to test the serum in non-laboratory conditions, which cannot replicate the pressures of stress, environment, or the interaction of the patient in relationship with others.

Because of the perishablilty of the serum, our next step in this research is to create a procedure that allows the patient to both create and administer the serum outside of laboratory supervision. In accomplishing this, the patient would be freed of the current necessity of remaining within or close to the Institute.

The current focus is to test the effectiveness of the serum under natural and daily living conditions. To begin to educate the patients in the processes required to maintain their health without medical supervision. This second goal is easily accomplished with those patients here at the Institute that have volunteered themselves to be subjects. The first we can accomplish with additional subjects who are willing to use the serum as directed in the enclosed documents, and to submit written observations on their on-going condition. Ideally I would like to speak directly to any volunteers; a central location where I could meet with a number of patients at once would be ideal.

While I have not broached the subject previously, it is my conclusion from the medical data, and the nature of the disease that an attempt to eliminate or mitigate the unfortunate side effects of the serum's usage might require its culture in human subjects. While I do not believe that this is a course of action we should consider, I would be remiss in not including it as a possibility.

While there are draw backs to the exclusive use of the serum, I do believe that our researches may have progressed as far as they can toward the goal of remission of the disease. I feel it is necessary to have further direction from you and the principals. The facility and staff here in Buffalo are dedicated to progress in the area of treating disease. It is my hope that our limited success in this specific area will not conclude the very important contributions we might be able to continue to make in other fields.

Respectfully Yours:

Dr. Gregory Parkhurst, Director Parkhurst Institute For Medical Research

Cc: Mr. Theo Weiss Cc: Dr. Jonathan Cromwell Cc. Tealson, Mercator & Finch Enclosures.

The enclosures consist of the following:

1. 15 pages of detailed budgetary information regarding the expenses of the Institute and projected expenses for the coming year, assuming that research is to continue. Built into the budget is the expectation of adding four to five full time medical staff, at least two more clerical positions, and expansion into additional space to offer additional medical clinical medical services free of charge.

The budgetary enclosures will be included only in the letter to Carl and in the copy to Tealson, Mercator and Finch.

2. 152 pages of typewritten medical text, detailing the last nine months of experimental work to develop the serum, and the processes for culturing and purifying for use in patients.

All but the summary is beyond anyone who does not have extensive medical and biochemical training. The summary is a simplified overview of the procedures that indicate the following.

A. Biological material from the infected patients are processed and broken down to the purest form to be introduced into the "first phase" animals.

B. The disease cultured in these animals is extracted after a period of incubation, (these animals are then destroyed) and treated with further biological material from the patients as well as fresh blood to encourage a large pool of the material to use for further experimentation. (Noted is the fact that this material is highly contagious in this form).

C. A very minute amount of the evolved material is introduced into new animals in which the culture will be grown. Through careful monitoring, which includes a restrictive diet and other complicated medical procedures (complete with icky diagrams) - a balance within the animal's system is reached in which the animal's own blood is replaced by the production of the serum. The process of reaching this balance is where the majority of the animals die before the balance is reached - or are required to be killed when the process multiplies too quickly. Success rate to produce the hybrid creature is about one in ten.

D. Once an animal is determined to reach stability (in more or less three months) - and proper maintaince procedures are followed (detailed instructions included) - it will continue to live and produce the serum (it is assumed) for the course of its natural life. Exposure to sunlight however is as deadly to the animals as it is to the patients.

E. The serum is extracted from the animal by syringe, and is purified using filtration in a cool environment. Heat above body temperature during this process immediately kills the living elements in the serum, rendering it useless. Several passes through the filtration process may be required. Purification is complete when the serum no longer contains particulate matter, and is a clear, faintly yellow color.

F. The serum should be administered by syringe directly into a vein within two hours of production. The recommended dosage based on a chart that cross-references body weight and how long the patient has been infected. Typical dosage is between 900 - 1500 millilieters.