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                                                      INTRODUCTION                                                              29

 

this absence of amylopsin in the foetus. To this day, to my knowledge, such is the “ conservatism” of the medical profession, amylopsin has not been employed as an injection in any case of threatened eclampsia.* But in cancer it has for some years past been used along with trypsin, and it has never failed to perform its task of removing the bad symptoms. The first case in which it was injected, in 1906, was that of a very distinguished artist and art-critic, who was suffering from an advanced cancer, recurrent after three operations. I had pre­viously told his physician—a London one of high standing—when, almost to the day, his patient would develop the bad symptoms. The first intimation was in a friendly letter written from the patient’s club by himself, in the course of which he complained of being drowsy, and said finally that he could hardly hold his pen for this reason. Then his physician wrote that the patient showed high arterial tension and albuminuria, and that he was about to inject amylopsin. Under the influence of this fer­ment all the symptoms vanished in two days. Had trypsin been as successful hitherto as amylopsin in its mission in the treatment of cancer, very many who are now dead would still be among us.

How the term “ trypsin treatment “ came to find its

 

 

  * This is a very remarkable fact. To many physicians of both sexes the writer has explained the scientific reasons for conclud­ing that the source of eclampsia was to be sought and found in an absence or deficiency of amylopsin in the maternal blood, to be remedied, of course, by hypodermic or intramuscular injections of genuine amylopsin of 2,000 units of activity per cubic centimetre. So far as he is aware, though more than one of these has expressed intentions of trying “ this scientific remedy, there is no sing]e case of actual or threatened eclampsia, in which such injec­tions were made. Instead thereof, the barbarous remedy of stripping the capsules of the kidneys is still often resorted to, and only recently a new device has been suggested seriously—to wit, amputation of the breasts.

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