A 53-year-old man with chronic back and leg pain developed recurrent painful ecchymoses after lumbar laminectomy. No hematologic abnormality could be detected, but an ecchymosis developed after subcutaneous injection of his blood into the region of pain. A detailed study of the psychological setting of the illness and his personality revealed this to be an example of psychogenic purpura. This is the third report of the syndrome in a male.
This article is a review and evaluation of the world literature on the systemic use of procaine in the treatment of the aging process and the common chronic diseases of later life. Included are data from 285 articles and books, describing treatment in more than 100,000 patients in the past 25 years. Except for a possible antidepressant effect, there is no convincing evidence that procaine (or Gerovital, of which procaine is the major component) has any value in the treatment of disease in older patients. If procaine has an antidepressant effect, there is some likelihood that this accounts for the reports of decreased complaints referable to the musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, endocrine, sexual, gastrointestinal and respiratory systems.During the past 25 years, a lengthy series of papers on the therapeutic effects of systemically administered procaine has appeared in the European and American literature. The pharmaceutical preparation most commonly used in the reported studies has been Gerovital (GH-3), which is basically a 2 percent solution of procaine. The
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