Medicine: UBI

Doctors have known for 15 years that irradiating the blood with invisible ultraviolet rays helps in some diseases, notably blood poisoning. Three years ago Drs. Valinta P. Wasson, George P. Miley and Preston M. Dunning of the New York Infirmary decided to use the technique on children with acute rheumatic heart disease. Last week they reported success in 22 consecutive cases.

All of the children, aged three to 13, were acutely ill with inflamed heart muscles (one result of the disease), the doctors told the American Blood Irradiation Society in Atlantic City’s Chalfonte-Haddon Hall. The process took only 15 to 25 minutes each time it was done. The doctors drew an amount of blood depending on the child’s weight (1.5 cubic centimeters for each pound), added citrate to prevent clotting, fed it into a machine called a Knott Hemo-Irradiator that exposes the blood to ultraviolet light. Then the blood was returned to the child’s arm through the same needle.

Treatments were given a week apart at first, then at longer intervals depending on the patient’s response; average number given was less than three. All patients left the hospital without sign of rheumatic heart disease except mechanical damage that had already taken place in the heart; 20 have returned to normal activity; one died, from another disease, and one “gained immeasurably.” The three doctors concluded that “UBI” (ultraviolet blood irradiation) is safe and may prove, after further tests, to be the best treatment available.