Carbolic acid (phenol)

synthetic

provenance:synthetic

first introduced:1929

regulatory status:unregulated

context:Used undiluted-adjacent, at roughly a quarter of the mixture by volume alongside glycerin and alcohol, in one of the numbered injection formulas Norman Baker administered to cancer patients at the Baker Hospital, Muscatine, Iowa, and later at Baker's Cancer Curing Hospital, Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

MECHANISM CLAIMED

No specific mechanism was advertised to patients; the injection was marketed simply as part of a treatment that would cure cancer. Government chemical analysis introduced at Baker's 1940 mail-fraud trial found one numbered injection formula to be roughly a quarter glycerin, over a quarter carbolic acid, with the remainder alcohol -- a caustic, non-selective mixture with no demonstrated anti-cancer activity.

INTERVENTIONS USING IT

Baker's Cancer Cure (tea and injections)

NOTES

Carbolic acid (phenol) is a caustic, toxic compound with genuine antiseptic and cauterizing properties but no selective anti-cancer action. In Norman Baker’s cancer-cure business it supplied one of two disclosed injection formulas: a solution of roughly a quarter glycerin and over a quarter carbolic acid, the balance alcohol, given to patients under the same “cure” advertising as the harmless watermelon-seed, corn-silk, and clover tea sold alongside it. Government chemists documented its presence in the formula for Baker’s 1940 federal trial.