This page will capture articles by A Midwestern Doctor (AMWD) who writes The Forgotten Side of Medicine on Substack, specifically their research on Dimethyl sulfoxide, also known as DMSO, along with other documentation I may deem relevant and informative.

DMSO is an extensively researched compound with hundreds of published scientific articles that reveal it’s profound potential to help alleviate human suffering. A naturally derived compound that has been pushed to the side, unfairly censored by the FDA and basically forgotten about – until now.

DMSO freezes at about room temperature (~18 degrees C) and boils at approx 189 degrees C…Even at 50 degrees C below zero a 50% mixture of DMSO and water will not freeze – REF

I will also capture other articles of interest relating to DMSO as they come to my attention. Helping us all do our own research.

Articles in reverse chronological order

2025

August 3, 2025 – A Midwestern Doctor Substack: DMSO Mixtures Transform Natural Medicine – Numerous natural therapies, when combined with DMSO, are able to both rejuvenate the body and treat a variety of complex and challenging illnesses. – READ

  • Note: while DMSO cannot be patented, combinations can. As such, while DMSO alone is “unsafe” “ineffective” and “unproven” many “safe and effective” DMSO pharmaceutical combinations exist, including many approved by the FDA.

June 22, 2025 – A Midwestern Doctor Substack: Therapeutic DMSO Combinations Revolutionize Medicine – How DMSO being mixed with numerous common medications creates a myriad of remarkable therapeutic possibilities – READ

  • You’ll find with in a list of 9 DMSO articles to date, in case I’ve missed some.

March 3, 2025 – RESCUE substack | Mary Beth Pfeiffer: The DMSO Moment: How an Old Medicine Finds New Life – READ

  • Key doctors share their protocols and the possibilities for long-forgotten DMSO for everything from cold sores to lung disease.

February 14, 2025 – RESCUE substack | Mary Beth Pfeiffer: Like Penicillin, ‘Miraculous’ DMSO Could Change the Lives of Afflicted Millions – READ

  • “The FDA long ago buried dimethyl sulfoxide, but a crusading physician and the medical freedom movement may resurrect it for stroke, paralysis, chronic pain, and more.”Check PubMed for DMSO, and more than 39,000 studies come up, many of them documenting efficacy in treating dozens of conditions in laboratory animals and people. Then ask why your doctor doesn’t even know about DMSO—and why the FDA long ago all but banished it from clinical use.”

2024

November 1, 2024 – AMWD: How DMSO Cures Eye, Ear, Nose, Throat and Dental Disease – Many of those “incurable” conditions respond remarkably to DMSO – READ

October 28, 2024 – AMWD: The FDA’s War Against DMSO and America – The Forgotten History That Led to the FDA Again and Again Keeping the Things We Most Desperately Need Away From Us – READ

October 21, 2024 – AMWD: How DMSO Treats “Incurable” Autoimmune and Contractile Disorders – The decades of research that could have prevented an immense amount of human suffering – READ

  • DMSO has been show to stabalise mis-folding proteins…”amyloidosis is a challenging condition that results from aggregates of insoluble proteins accumulating in the surrounding tissues. DMSO in turn has been shown to solubilize the amyloid aggregates and enabling the body to break down and eliminate them…”
  • “…at least 40 studies and case reports have shown that DMSO can treat numerous types of amyloidosis.” References cited No. 1-40
  • “…DMSO has also been shown to revert the protein responsible for the devastating neurological prion diseases Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and scrapie (which suggests it could also be helpful for mad cow disease).”

October 13, 2024 – AMWD: The Remarkable History and Safety of DMSO – Please share your experiences with DMSO with the readers here! TESTIMONIALS – READ

September 30, 2024 – AMWD: DMSO is a Miraculous Therapy for Chronic Pain and Musculoskeletal Injuries – The decades of evidence DMSO revolutionizes the practice of medicine – READ

September 15, 2024 – The Forgotten Side of Medicine | AMWD: DMSO Could Save Millions From Brain and Spinal Injury – The decades of evidence showing DMSO revolutionizes the care of many “untreatable” circulatory and neurologic conditions – READ

  • Amyloidosis: “One of the most well-known protein misfolding conditions (which sadly ..has also been linked to the COVID vaccines) is amyloidosis, a challenging to treat condition where misfolded proteins are produced in excess, clump together in the body, and gradually fill up organs, increasingly disrupting their function
  • “DMSO appears to have the ability to both dissolve amyloid aggregates and eliminate them from the body, and in all cases where it has been attempted, no adverse effects were observed…”
  • “DMSO is an acetylcholine esterase inhibitor, a therapeutic strategy also used to treat Alzheimer’s disease” often called cholinesterase inhibitors
  • How to administer Intravenous (IV) DMSO – Paid subscribers only

2019

November 2, 2019 – Thy Principles: The Unbelievable Health Benefits of DMSO | Everything You Need to Know – WATCH

2015

November 5, 2018 – F1000 Reserch Journal: Adverse reactions of dimethyl sulfoxide in humans: a systematic review – Madsen et al – READ, CREDIT

  • Conclusions: From review of 109 studies “DMSO may cause a variety of adverse reactions that are mostly transient and mild.“

January 17, 2015 – Dr. Stanley Jacob, the “Father of DMSO”, passed away ten days after celebrating his 91st birthday with friends and family – REF 

1998

September 24, 1998 – Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) Oral History Program | Digital Colections: Transcribed Interview with Dr. Stanley Jacob – Topic General Surgery, Dimethly Sulfoxide and Physiscians – READ, CREDIT, READ2

  • “DMSO pioneer Dr. Stanley Jacob described his remarkable discovery prompted, in the often arcane way of science, by a 1959 Lancet article on selected substances, dimethyl sulfoxide among them, that lessened the damage to cells from freezing. At the time, he was looking for ways to preserve transplant organs (for which DMSO is still used)….His ground-breaking work—and his observation that it could penetrate the skin without damaging it and disseminate throughout the body in seconds—brought DMSO into research laboratories and clinics nationwide.” – REF
  • “I came across Lovelock’s article” Jacob stated, Did he mean James Lovelock [see WEBSITE], who in 1959 published in Nature.
    • Lovelock, J.E. and Bishop, M.W.H. 1959. Prevention of freezing damage to living cells by dimethyl sulphoxide. Nature, 183, 1394

1985

September 16, 1985 – Academic Press: Pharmacology of DMSO by Stanley W. Jacob and Robert Herschler – READ (wealth of references)

  • Presented at the Symposium Biological Effects of Cryoprotective Agents at the Cryobiology Meeting, June 1985, Madison, Wis.
  • When the theorectical basis of DMSO action is described, we can list literally dozens of primary pharmacologic actions. This relatively brief summary will touch on only a few:

    (A) membrane penetration
    (B) membrane transport
    (C) effects on connective tissue
    (D) anti-inflamation
    (E) nerve blockade (analgesia)
    (F) bacteriostasis
    (G) diuresis
    (H) enhancement or reduction of effectiveness of other drugs
    (I) cholinsterase inhibition
    (J) nonspecific enhancement of resistance of infection
    (K) vasodilation
    (L) muscle relaxation
    (M) enhancement of cell differentiation and function
    (N) antagonism to platelet aggregation
    (O) influence on serum cholesterol in experimental hypercholesterolemia
    (P) radio-protective and cryoprotective actions
    (Q) protection against ischemic injury

1983

June 1983 – NY Academy of Sciences: EFFECT OF DIMETHYL SULFOXIDE ON PRECIPITABILITY OF BENCE JONES PROTEINS AND THEIR CONVERSION TO AMYLOID FIBRILS by Pruzanski et al – READ, CREDIT

  • Study finds that DMSO prevented 125 Bence Jones proteins from converting to amyloid fibrils and stopped most of them from precipitating – REF

1980

March 24, 1980 – Hearing before the Select Committee on Aging, House of Representatives: DMSO: New Hope for Arthritis? – PDF, CREDIT

March 1980 – 60 Minutes: The Riddle of DMSO featuring Dr Jacob – WATCH, CREDIT, CREDIT2

1980 – 60 Minutes: The Riddle of DMSO – WATCH

January 1, 1980 – BOOK: The Persecuted Drug: The Story of DMSO (revised edition) by Pat McGrady Sr. – ARCHIVE, BOOK, A Midwestern Doctor – CREDIT (First published 1973 REF , 1973 COVER)

AMAZON

1975

December 9, 1975 – US Patent CA979364A, Assignee: Crown Zellerbach Corp; Inventor: Stanley W Jacob et al – Dimethyl sulfoxide compositions for treatment of burns promotion of skin grafts, process for preparing same and method of using same – READ

1970

December 22, 1970 – US Patent Granted to Crown Zellerbach Corporation, California., number 3549770: Therapeutic administration of effective amounts of dimethyl sulfoxide to human and animal subjects – Inventor Robert J Herschler and Stanley W Jacob – READ, CREDIT

  • The attorneys involved said it represented the broadest approval ever given to a medical advance by the US Patent Office – REF

1967

May 5, 1967 – Time Magazine: Medicine: Blackout of DMSO – READ

March 1967 – Annals of NY Academy of Sciences: Effect of DMSO on the stabilization of lysosomes by cortisone and chloroquine in vitro – Weissmann et al – READ, CREDIT

1966

December 22, 1966 – New York Times: DMSO BAN ENDED BY DRUG AGENCY; F.D.A. Sets Strict Rules for Controversial Compound’s Use in Tests on Humans – READ, ARCHIVE

  • “The Food and Drug Administration announced today it would allow doctors to resume using DMSO on human patients in research studies provided the controversial drug was given under strictly controlled circumstances.” At the time Dr. James L. Goddard, was FDA Commissioner
  • DMSO was banned in Fall of 1965 after animals, given massive doses for 6+ weeks, formed eye lesions!

October 6, 1966 – New York Times: Drug Agency to Rule Soon On the Release of DMSO – READ, ARCHIVE

October 5, 1966 – Congressman Robert Duncan refereed discussion between FDA and DMSO scientists – REF

July 8, 1966 – Science News Letter: DMSO future dimmed – READ, EXCERPT

  • FDA banned because of the “undesirable side effects that were observed in the eyes of laboratory animals” at the Huntington Laboratoris in England and at tow US firms, Wyeth and Merck Sharpe & Dohme….caution in usage of the drug has been advised by FDA, even though they have no “reports of direct connection between the taking of DMSO and the occurrence of advers reactions in humans” – REF

1965

September 1965 – It was reported in The Wall Street Journal that “a woman in Ireland died of an allergic reaction after taking DMSO and several other drugs. Although the precise cause of the woman’s death was never determined, the press reported it to be DMSO.” – REF, “her tongue swelled and she choked” allegedly, 3 days after being treated with DMSO. “no autopsy was made”- REF2

  • Two months later, the FDA closed down clinical trials in the United States, citing the woman’s death and changes in the lenses of certain laboratory animals that had been given doses of the drug many times higher than would be given humans.”
  • “Some 20 years and hundreds of laboratory and human studies later, no other deaths have been reported, nor have changes in the eyes of humans been documented or claimed. Since then, however, the FDA has refused seven applications to conduct clinical studies, and approved only 1, for intersititial cystitis, which subsequently was approved for prescriptive use in 1978.” – REF

1964

March 18, 1964 – Dr Jacobs et al met with FDA representatives to discuss reasearch moving forward – REF

  • “At this point the FDA could not have been more reasonable”
  • they were cautious that “thalidomide-like disasters” would not happen in the USA

February 2,1964 – New York Times: NEW DRUG HAILED INITIAL TESTING; All‐Purpose Agent Is Studied in Humans on the Coast – ARCHIVE

  • “A preliminary report on testing in laboratory animals and in a few human patients was published yesterday in the February issue of Current Therapeutic Research. The potential uses of the compound were detailed by Dr. Stanley W. Jacob, an assistant professor of surgery at Oregon, who discovered the medical properties of the compound…The compound is dimethyl sulfoxide.”
  • “The drug, Dr. Jacobs said, appears to be a pain‐killer, a tranquilizer; and it seems to have the ability to penetrate body tissues and carry other drugs with it. It can be rubbed on the skin, swallowed, or injected.”…
  • “Dimethyl sulfoxide, DMSO as it is known, first found use inindustry. Its medical uses were discovered almost by accident. It had been found to be useful in the treatment of plant diseases because the chemical would transport antibiotics and fungicides through the systems of trees and potentiate the effectiveness of these materials.”

February 1, 1964 – Current Therapeutic Research: Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO): A new concept in pharmacotherapy by Dr. Stanley Jacob and Robert Herschler – READ

  • Dr. Stanley Jacob and Robert Herschler, a lead chemist at Crown Zellerbach, a paper mill in Camas, Washington published a science journal article. entitled, “Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO): A new concept in pharmacotherapy.” – READ, CREDIT

1963

December 30, 1963 – U S NEWS-WORLD REPORT 1963-12-30: Vol 55 Iss 27, page 7 – A Drug to Replace Hypodermic Needles? – ARCHIVE, CREDIT

source

December 23, 1963 Newsweek Vol 62 Iss 26 pg 68 – Sweet Taste of DMSO by Matt Clark – ARCHIVE, CREDIT

  • …a few weeks ago, a researcher spilled some of the clear liquid on his hands. As he watched dumfounded, it seemed to soak through his skin. And in a few moments, e noticed a peculiar sweetish taste in his mouth, suggesting that the substance had spread through his body.”
  • “A substantial part of the medical story [of DMSO] emerged last week when Crown Zellerbach, manufacturers of DMSO and the nations’ second largest paper firm, and Oregon State Board of Higher Education announced a 50-50 profit-sharing arrangement on the potential pharmaceutical applicatons of the chemical.”
  • “Mixed with vaccines or other medicines, DMSO might make hypodermic meedles obsolete…In addition, Jacob and Crown Zellerbach chemist Robert J. Herschler found that DMSO is also a potent pain reliever…”
Dr Stanley Jacob – source

December 9, 1963 (Filed) – US Patent US3499961A: Applicant: Crown Zellerbach Corp. : Inventor Richard L Dobson, Stanley W Jacob, Robert J Herschler – Dimethyl sulfoxide-enhanced astringent aluminum, zinc or zirconium antiperspirant salt cosmetics – READ

October 1963 – Dr Jabob “presented his report before the Surgical Biology Club”…they thought whe was “ribbing them”. “He offered to report to the Society of University Surgeons; they turned him down” – REF

1962

1962 -In 1962 (or was this 1993?) a cheap industrial solvent was accidentially found to have several medicinal uses, including pain relief. As reserchers rushed to investigate its potential, dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) was given a “wonder drug” image by the press. – REF (1984)

  • Guided by the evolving constructs of drug “safety”, “effectiveness” and “approval” the U.S. Food and Durg Administration temporarily banned all human testing of DMSO
  • Taken from a paper, with anonymous authors, which was origially presented at the Society for the Study of Social Problems, in Detroit Aug 27-30, 1983 – REF

1959

1959 Nature: Prevention of freezing damage to living cells by dimethyl sulphoxide.183, 1394 by Lovelock, J.E. and Bishop, M.W.H. – READ, Papers by James Lovelock – HERE, Lovelock refrenced here – CREDIT

1953

1953 – Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), a by-product of the wood industry, has been in use as a commercial solvent 1953″ – REF

1866

1866 – Dr Alexander M. Saytzeff, a Russian chenists, examines a colourless and clear solution, which he idenitified as Dimethly Sulfoxide (DMSO) – and takes the knowledge to his grave – REF, REF