The placenta has a history of medicinal use, starting more than 2000 years ago. It was used as a Nectar of eternal youth during the Qin Dynasty in China (259 BC to 210 BC). It appears in a medical text authored Honzo Syui from the Tang Dynasty (618 AD to 907 AD) under the names Jinho or Hoi.
It appears again in the Ming Dynasty (1368 to 1644) as Shikasha in the book Bencao Gangmu, where it is prized as nourishing magical herbal remedy for physical and mental tiredness and weakness. In Taoism, the elixir used to become a wizard is called Kasha. Yang Kwei-Fei is said to have often prescribed Shikasha. In modern times too, it is an essential ingredient in Kampo medicine. Shikasha also appears in a Korean medical text entitled Dongui Bogam (1613). In the Edo Period in Japan (1603 to 1868) the same Shikasha was one of the three main active agents in a treatment called Kongentan from the town of Kaga in the modern Ishikawa Prefecture.
Also in the West, Hippocrates, a doctor in Ancient Greece called “the father of Western medicine,” used placenta in his treatments. Cleopatra also said to have used placenta for rejuvenation and beauty. But somehow, while the use of placenta as a traditional medicine has persisted in the East, it has been forgotten in the West since the time of the Middle Ages, and it wasn’t until research was done in the 1930s in the Soviet Union that the placenta’s usefulness once again saw the light of day.
Research on human placental extract gained a velocity with the description of the preparation of its extract by Russian ophthalmologist Professor V.P. Filatov. Professor Filatov was a medical school professor in Odessa in the Soviet Union. Recent medical history from 1912 showed that Filatov started research on grafting human. He observed that when animal or vegetable tissues are isolated from the organism and subjected to the action of environmental factors that inhibit their vital processes, they undergo biochemical homeostasis.
In consequence of this readjustment, the tissues develop substances that stimulate their vital processes. Filatov named these substances as Biogenic Stimulators (Filatov, 1951). After many clinical experiments, Filatov was convinced that the placenta of human or animal origin could be used to obtain curative and regenerative effects.
That is how the principle of Tissue Therapy was originated. Professor Filatov reported that “the Placenta not only activates the functions of the whole body, it is also excellent at promoting recovery of diseased areas”.
In 1945, Prof. Filatov was awarded the highly influential Lenin Prize for his superb achievements.