With this the possibility of excitation of fibroplastic activity in the animal tissues is accomplished and with such a relatively crude basis of manner of action of a medicinal substance, one can hardly make a transition to the human organism. According to Rossle’s report siliciium has a great significance for the defense against destructive tuberculosis and porcelain workers who inhale the fine dust of silicates, if they become tuberculous, have for the most part the fibrous form of disease. And this fibroid-indurative form is more favorable than the exudative-ulcerative form as is well known.
One may present the following conception of the effectiveness of silicic acid on connective tissue formation in the lung. In crushed stone workers the fragments of stone are in acrude and hardly dispersed state. They reach the lungs and in their transportation to the lymph glands produce relatively crude scars with subsequent connective tissue growth, the so-called chalicosis pulmonum. How greately this gives the first occasion for the outbreak of pulmonary tuberculosis is known and easy to understand. The same behaviour occurs with the finer silicic acid-rich dust which millers inhale in large amounts. Also by the copious ingestion of slightly dispersed silicic acid they are not protected against pulmonary tuberculosis. But it is otherwise with the medicinal administration of silicic acid. The Glashager mineral springs, which were preferred by Kobert, contain silicic acid in a dilution of 5:1,000,000. Here one can imagine much better that the particles of silicic acid are sufficiently small in order to provoke scarring only in single cells with which they come in contact, that is, on the whole, in the cells which have the capacity to stimulate fibroplastic activity. How fine we must represent the colloidal process in actuality we whall still see in discussing the actions of silicic acid on the blood cells. From the discussion up to the present we may also conclude that silicic acid in cases of tuberculosis, where a stimulation of the fibroplastic activity of the cells seems necessary, should serve as a medicinal supportive agent for the self healing but that the chief factor outside of the correct selection of the remedy, is the selection of the right degree of division since from too slight a grade of dispersion more harm than good may be expected.
USE IN PULMONARY TUBERCULOSIS
Since most of the therapeutic trials with silicic acid, outside of homoeopathy, have been arranged in pulmonary tuberculosis, the results should be mentioned here briefly. The trial was carried out by the Kobert school, particularly by Kuhn. He employed in part the Glashager mineral spring, partly a tea from the silicic acid-rich plants and indeed Equisetum minor, polygonum aviculare, galeopis ochroleuca. The therapy was continued over a long time. But since a complete series of physical-dietetic measures were employed simultaneously and on the other side medicinal measures were used, at most only a general impression can be gained from these studies on the addition of silicic acid tea to the other methods of treatment; but these seemed favorable in pulmonary tuberculosis, especially at the beginning of the disease. Naturally it does not awaken much confidence when Kuhn did not venture to remove other medicinal therapy even if only experimentally. Indefinite impressions from the use of teas of plants strong in silicic acid were available from the centuries-old use of plants as tuberculosis teas as well as under other names in folk medicine. From an employment on a general diagnosis one cannot expect much more than uncertain impressions.
COLLOID ACTIONS ON SERUM AND CELLS
The experiments with colloidal silicic acid on serum and cells has brought many explanations for the possibility of action of finely divided silicic acid.
Investigations with sodium silicate have shown that in a dilution of 1:1000 it precipitates proteins and agglutinates red blood cells. In this respect colloidal silicic acid agglutinates red blood cells in a dilution which corresponds to the 7 decimal potency of silicic acid. The other conditions such as the presence of electrolytes have the same influence as with organic agglutinins. Hemo-agglutination occurs most rapidly with the medium concentrations, in higher concentrations it is slowed. It is activated similarly as organic agglutinins by warming, the agglutinating action will be removed by prolonged standing in a 1 Percent sodium chloride solution containing silicic acid, more rapidly through moderate warming or brief boiling, whereby with sufficient dilution of the fluid no noteworthy alterations are shown. With the hemo-agglutination by silicic acid, an easy destructibility of the red blood cells is also shown, for example, even with mild warming with a 1 Percent salt solution a certain amount of hemoglobin is given off and the same occurs with shaking. Now silicic acid does not indifferently agglutinate all cells. It has a certain grade of specificity even if the immunohemolysins will not, for example, agglutinate the typhoid bacillus. On the other hand it acts agglutinating and paralyzing in still smaller concentrations on spermatozoa. After red blood cells are agglutinated by silicic acid, the addition of a very dilute lecithin solution causes hemolysis and the outpouring of hemoglobin. (In strong concentrations lecithin alone will produce hemolysis.) Thereby a greater amount of silicic acid than the necessary one will delay or prevent hemolysis. We see also for this biochemic action as so often a definite optimum is present and is a sign of a colloid reaction. At the same time this is ever again proof that it requires a definite dose which does not pass beyond a certain amount in order to obtain definite biologic results. The hemolysis which results in rabbit blood cells from agglutination by silicic acid also occurs by the addition of fresh rabbit serum; but not or in a higher degree if the serum has been previously heated for a short time to 60o. The action of the srum addition (that is, complement) can be suppressed or depressed in silicic acid hemolysis by the same agent as in the other cell dissolving action of sera. Landstiener represents the hemolysis as an alteration in the lipoid part of the blood cells (or the lipoid- protein compounds) forming the pre-condition so that through the intermediation of silicic acid more lecithin or complement will be absorbed by the blood cells. Lecithin solution alone with silicic acid solution forms a very slow falling precipitate which rapidly unites into flocculates when a 1 Percent mixture of sodium chloride is added. A Siegfried has found, silicic acid also produces a precipitate in the blood serum. This precipitation will be depressed by an excess of the blood serum, similar to the precipitating effect of precipitins.
v.Dungern and Coca also found that a moderate concentration of silicic acid represented the optimal condition for the hemolytic action. Not only with an increase in the silicic acid but also in increase of the blood serum the hemolysis decreases. The same happens from the addition of certain salts, as magnesium, calcium and barium chloride. Since silicic acid also unites with substances of the blood serum, it may be assumed that in the mixture with the complement containing serum, part of the silicic acid and part of the complement in the serum will become inactive. This has been confirmed in that it makes a difference in the hemolysis whether one adds the silici acid first to the blood cells or adds the srum previously. The hemolysis will naturally be promoted by the previous addition to the blood cells. Now while the blood cells are undoubtedly made much more sensitive to complement and lecithin through silicic acid, v. Dungern and Coca found that in contrast to other substances, they become more resistant to soap solution. The alteration of the state of the blood cells by silicic acid must therefore be a particular one.
Seligmann found that the reaction playing between two colloids or between one colloid and a salt can lead to flocculation and even if this is not visible. Hailer showed that 1-5 Percent poured into guinea pig serum bound the complement entirely or in part so that the addition of sensitized blood was either not at all or only incompletely dissolved. On the countrary a coagulating ferment from a rennet solution was not adsorbed by silicic acid. Accordingly ferments behave otherwise than the complement of the serum. Rennet will be bound just as little by silicis acid as a specific precipitate as occurs in the reaction between antigen and immune body. Silicic acid also behaves entirely as a specific precipitate in the reaction between antigens and immune bodies. For the different behavior of complement and rennet ferment in the two cases, different adsorption coefficients of the two substances are made responsible, as occurs in other cases. The difference of specificity between the precipitate formation of antigen and immune body on the one side and an inorganic colloid will not rest there on. It is merely shown that also in this specific action, a decisive weight is to be place on colloidal flocculation. Landsteiner and Bock found that the silicic acid of a so-called hemolytic system could appear in place of specific immune bodies, of hemolysins and that such a non-specific hemolytic system could be used as a test object in the Wassermann test for syphilis. But now Landsteiner employed the active serum of the patient, also his immune body and his complement and also his own blood cells as a test object. From this it proceeds that the silicic acid in the human blood works hemolytically. But this method differs from the usual arrangement in the Wassermann test because in it guinea pig serum is employed as complement and sheep bloodcorpuscles tend to be employed as an indicator. Liebers found also the usual arrangement of the hemolytic system in which the specific hemolysin was replaced by silicic acid could not be used. Hemolysis did not appear in either negative or positive sera. In the contest around the complement of the guinea pig srum, even in the usual test arrangement the combination of the luetic liver extract and the luetic immune body, in the complement binding endeavor the silicic acid was the victor. In his studies Liebers found that silic acid did not produce hemolysis in all kinds of blood, for example not in sheep and horse blood, but on the other hand in rabbit and swine blood. Also in the testing of various types of sera, that is complements, one of which had been sensitized by a specific immune body (hemolyis), the other by silicic acid, he found an extensive parallelism in the action of specific bodies and the silicic acid. The fact that different types of blood cells absorb silicic acid differently is explained by Liebers as due to different surface tensions, for which the different chemical composition of single types of blood can be made responsible. Furthermore other types of investigations make it seem probable that the various grades of alkalescence of the blood corpuscles may play a role. Silicic acid alone acts agglutinating on the red blood cells according to Liebers but does not affect hemolysis. Older silicic acid solutions which have become slightly turbid and which therefore have a slighter grade of dispersity are less useful for showing the hemolytic effects but still produce marked agglutination. With this agrees the fact that smaller amount of silicic acid of a higher grade of dispersity provides the most favorable chance for the hemolysis. Here also we again see how the grade of dispersion of the silicic acid is of striking importance for the type of biochemic action. In agreement with the earlier findings of v. Dungern and Coca, Nathan later found that sheep blood by a treatment with silicic acid has increased resistance against the hemolytic actions of saponins, indeed it becomes more sensitive for certain materials but insensitive for others.
Leeser, a Consultant Physician at the Stuttgart Homeopathic Hospital and a member of the German Central Society of Homeopathic Physicians, fled Germany in 1933 after being expelled by the German Medical Association. In England Otto Leeser joined the staff of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital. He returned to Germany in the 1950s to run the Robert Bosch Homeopathic Hospital in Stuttgart, but died shortly after.
Otto Leeser wrote Textbook of Homeopathic Materia Medica, Leesers Lehrbuch der Homöopathie, Actionsand Medicinal use of Snake Venoms, Solanaceae, The Contribution of Homeopathy to the Development of Medicine, Homeopathy and chemotherapy, and many articles submitted to The British Homeopathic Journal,