CRUCIAL TEST OF THE
NATURE OF CANCER
241
stance upon which it acts “as a key fits a
lock.” Now, on a previous page, reference has been made to the “liquefaction of
cancer” by means of potent hypodermic injections of trypsin. This has been seen
more than once by a London consulting physician, who sent me several tubes of
such liquid cancer from two patients suffering from epithelioma (skin-cancer).
As already stated, the accuracy of this observation has been confirmed by
Professor F. Blumenthal, of Berlin, and by the observations made by Captain
Lambelle in the treatment of the two cases of lympho-sarcoma and sarcoma.*
Since no observation refuting this has ever been published, it stands as a
discovery doubly confirmed by observation. As hundreds of medical men have
found, trypsin does not “ liquefy” the normal somatic laevo-rotatory albumins
of the body and blood, although in some very advanced cancer cases, where they
have been much injured by the action of the cancer, it may not be without some
action upon them.** It follows from all this that, even without the use of the
polarimeter, the scientific
* Bainbridge’s sixth thesis on p. 32 of his “
Scientific Report” reads:” That injectio trypsini, in some cases, seems
to cause more rapid disintegration of (to ‘liquefy,’ according to Beard)
cancerous tissue.” Since to this author it only “ seems “ to do this, and since
his report does not contain a particle of evidence of the fact, I do not here
cite—because there are none to quote—. any observations of his as confirming
this undoubted fact. It suffices that Professor Blumenthal and Captain Lambelle
have witnessed it, the latter in two cases. Possibly, Dr. Bainbridge never saw
it at all, except in the microscopical preparation, or preparations, which I
sent him in 1907.
** Such cases are probably much too advanced
for success to be possible. A medical friend has recently written to me that in
every disease there is a point beyond which the case is hopeless, and that
blood-examinations in cancer cases under treatment were very desirable. In my
opinion, this again indicates the folly of operation on living cancer, for this
does but stimulate its growth and increase, until anon this point is reached.
Then it is too late for any treatment to be successful.