COMMENTARY ON VENTRICULIN

    Ventriculin and Ventriculin with iron were manufactured by Parke-Davis and Company until sometime in the mid or late 1950s.  As listed in the 1953 issue of the Physician's Desk Reference, Ventriculin is described as a powder to be used orally, an antianemic substance derived from gastric tissue.  The medical dictionary reference states that it is derived from the gastric tissue of hogs.  Forty grams of the powder was described as one U.S.P. unit, and this was the daily suggested dosage.  It was used as a stimulator of reticulocyte formation and as a specific for pernicious anemia.  It was also used in atrophic gastritis.  The Ventriculin with iron contained 12.5% naferon, which was iron and sodium citrate neutral.  The latter was indicated for anemia due to iron deficiency states.

    It is to be assumed that Cayce found the Ventriculin to be beneficial in a number of conditions since it was suggested not only in anemia but in conditions such as scleroderma, as an extreme example.  Perhaps it was the enzymes which were present in the wall of the stomach from which the powder was derived that prompted the use of this particular substance in the readings.  It may be that the readings saw this acting to promote better assimilation of foods and thus provide the substances within the bloodstream once assimilated, which would make for an ability to build red blood cells in the blood-forming organs.

    Substances which might be to some extent equivalent in the 1967 P.D.R. are Converzyme (Ascher); Digestant (Canright); Accelerase (Organon); Entozyme (A.  H. Robins).  Entozyme has in it 250 mg. of N. F. equivalent pepsin; 300 mg.  N. F. equivalent pancreatin; and 150 mg. biosalts.  Converzyme tablets contain 5 mg. of cellulolytic enzyme; proteolytic enzyme 10 mg.; amylolytic enzyme 30 mg.; and lipolytic enzyme 800 Ascher units.  This gives an idea of the relative difference between these more modern preparations and that which Cayce described in various places.  It seems reasonable that these could be interchangeable.

[Note: The preceding commentary was written by William A. McGarey, M.D. and is excerpted from the Physician's Reference Notebook Copyright © 1968 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]