Pulp fix-it

Health officials shelved and ignored this old all-purpose ointment, made from wood, but old and new science suggests it could be a power healer

- Celeste McGovern

On a Sunday evening in 1980, 70 million Americans switched their televisions on to 60 Minutes, and Mike Wallace presented a short documentary on a novel therapy touted as a “miracle cure” for a range of ailments. A young woman expected to spend life in a wheelchair after an accident was shown walking with supports after treatments and said she was “really excited with the results.”

An elderly woman with crippling arthritis played piano effortlessly because, she said, of the liquid she massaged into her finger joints. Wallace interviewed a professional quarterback squirting about an inch of gel on his shoulder and rubbing it in, saying he would be “out of the game” if he didn’t use it.

Wallace also introduced a California housewife whose chronic nerve pain from whiplash was debilitating. The camera crew followed as she received an intravenous injection, and later topical solution, of a substance called dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and water from Stanley Jacob, a soft-spoken surgeon at the University of Oregon Health Sciences Center and the chief proponent of DMSO. Viewers saw her apparently remarkable recovery with just a few doses of this inexpensive treatment.

At the time of airing, DMSO was banned for medical use in America except in Oregon and Florida, where it was available by prescription only. Wallace ended his segment by telling viewers that the following morning, a House Committee on Aging would begin inquiring why the substance was not available to all Americans.

The following week, Jacob’s office in Oregon and government offices in Washington, DC, were flooded with phone calls from people seeking appointments and demanding DMSO be made widely available.