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    18                              THE ENZYME TREATMENT OF CANCER

 

the reason of my advocacy of trypsin in cancer that the pancreas-gland was believed to be at fault in cancer patients. Versions of the reasons similar to these two have been given in other places—thus, in the Münchener Medjzinische Wochenschrift. They are both quite in­correct. My only connection with the first was in pub­lishing in the Lancet of April 29, 1905, a summary and translation of some recent German cancer work, including that of Blumenthal and Wolff upon the chemistry of cancer, and the citation of this relation of trypsin to the cancer-cell as a certain support of my views. As to the second reason, neither the writer of the article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica” nor anyone else can find in any of my published writings even a hint of this state-merit. Moreover, it has been supposed that my affirma­tion of the germinal origin of cancer meant that it was embryonic or somatic, and my name has been quoted as that of a supporter and advocate of ”embryonic theories,” such as the Remak-Cohnheim one of “ embryonic rests.” In the first article referred to (“ Ergebnisse der Physio­logic “) Blumenthal considers these embryonic theories as refuted from the chemical side by the chemical facts mentioned in his paper, such as the discovery by Abder­halden and Pincussohn that the ferments contained in extracts of mouse-tumours pull down silk peptones and polypeptids atypically. With this conclusion I agree absolutely, and would add that ever since 1902, and before then, I have been an opponent of the Remak-Cohnheim theory of “ embryonic rests “ upon grounds of embryological observation, leading to the conclusion that these “ rests “ are mere figments of the imagination. The Remak-Cohnheim theory of embryonic rests is, therefore, now untenable on decisive chemical and em­bryological grounds, and must be abandoned.

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