Historical background

2. Historical background

The principle of healing by the injection of animal organs and tissues has been known since medicine was in its infancy. This therapeutic principle is mentioned in the oldest medical document, the Ebers Papyrus from Egypt, but also in the writings of Aristoteles and later in the works of Paracelsus who was teaching that »Like heals like- heart heals heart, kidney heals kidney,,,« as early as the sixteenth century.

Cell therapy too is based on this principle. Its discoverer, the Swiss doctor Professor Paul Niehans, began by transplanting whole glands into patients. However, he progressed past this stage by slicing the glands thinly arid implanting them in the patients' abdominal muscles. Later, he perfected his method still further by abandoning surgical transplantation in favor of injecting cell suspensions. Organ cells and minute cell unions which have been infinitely! educed and suspended in a physiological solution con be brought to the right body fluids and tissue areas much more quickly and effectively by means of injection.

Niehans injected his, first cells in 1931 when confronted with an acute case of serious glandular malfunctioning .Realizing that it could well be too late for operational irnplanting of animal glands, he followed his intuition and reduced the gland to a fine mass of tissue The total success of this cell injection prompted Niehans to concentrate all his energy on this new therapeutic approach.

However, he deserves credit not just for developing a new therapeutic method but above all for selecting the injection materials from various organs and tissues and for using the cells and tissues of unborn donor animals which are less likely to be rejected and hove a greater therapeutic effect.

Significant research has been conducted into the action and effectiveness of cell therapy using these freeze-dried (lyophilized) cell preparations. Thanks to the progress obtained with this method/ it became possible for all therapeutists to administer the cells. Furthermore, it opened up the door to increasingly comprehensive international clinical testing. Therapeutists and scientists no longer need their own herds of sheep and slaughter-houses in order to have ot+heirdisposal sterile, standardized preparations with a long shelf-life which have been subjected to rigorous quality testing.