Bone Marrow Tinctures for Cardiovascular Disease

Abstract

Warburg’s Tincture was a blockbuster antifever remedy in the 19th century. It was invented by Dr Carl Warburg to treat a broad range of fevers, achieving widespread usage in the British Empire, the Austrian Empire, and also in the United States. Many renowned physicians prescribed it, but others were envious of Warburg’s success and not too happy about the fact that he kept its formulation secret. In 1870, Warburg finally revealed the secret ingredients and gave permission to Professor W. C. Maclean, one of the most ardent supporters of the remedy, to publish them in the Lancet 1: The elusive tincture contained many components, such as Rhubarb root, Angelica seeds, gentian root, Saffron, Fennel seeds, Myrrh, Camphor among others and, unsurprisingly, quinine. In his letter to the Lancet , Maclean effusively praises the tincture, but he also emphasizes that its healing power was not just attributable to the known antipyretic quinine, and that it was the unique composition of various extracts that was responsible for its efficacy. In the 21st century, few physicians would prescribe such tinctures, which are plant or animal extracts. The idea of using such extracts that contain a large array of substances, some active and some inactive, goes against the tenets of modern medical practice, in which we strive to define and titrate every single therapeutic agent to optimize efficacy. There is, however, one notable exception to this practice in an emerging area of cardiovascular medicine: the use of bone marrow mononuclear cells. Article see p 1968 An animal study in 1999 suggested that mononuclear cells extracted from the bone marrow and injected into the heart could be used to augment cardiac function after a myocardial infarction.2 These results were translated into the clinical setting at an astonishingly rapid pace, as evidenced by the …