PREFACE
xiii
than
fourteen days, it follows, that those who assert, that “trypsin” is devoid of
action upon living cancer-cells, might state with equal truth, that the
“trypsin” they used had also no action at all upon anything else—that is, was
quite inert.
Looking
back over the history of the ferment, trypsin, in science, though really
discovered, but not named, by Baron Corvisart in 1857, it was for some ten
years in danger of being forgotten. Then, in. 1867, Professor W. Kühne took it
up for research purposes, and in 1876 he gave it the name it bears of “
trypsin,” from Trncw, “I
wear away.” That is, it took Kühne nine years to establish this ferment
securely as a possession of science. Why should I expect to be more fortunate
than he? If nine years were required to set at rest the question of the mere
actual existence of such a ferment as trypsin, it is perhaps quite out of
question to say how many times the earth will have to describe its path round
the sun—in conformity with the doctrine of Copernicus—before mankind will admit
the truth of my discoveries concerning Nature’s uses of trypsin and its
complement, amylopsin. It may be that they, including many surgeons, would
rather themselves die of cancer than admit the truth. Like the other happenings
in the history of the reception of my cancer studies, this would not be at all
a new attitude, for, according to Brewster, “a protegé of Kepler’s, of the name
of Horky, wrote a volume against Galileo’s discovery “ of the satellites of
Jupiter, “ after having declared’ that he would never concede his four new
planets to that Italian from Padua, even if he should die for it.’” But sooner
or later, if not now—possibly in the far-off future, when the inertia of the
past two thousand years shall have ceased to be, and a new advance of the human
intellect shall commence—it will be recognized