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    36                                      THE ENZYME TREATMENT OF CANCER

 

years. Previous treatment : removal of growth from left breast, June 4, 1904 (Dr. Edward W. Peet) ; radical operation refused. About one year later thirty-two X-ray treatments (Dr. William J. Morton) ; trypsin, 5 to 10 minim doses, April 27 to October 31, 1906 (Dr. Morton). Radical operation, November 3, 1906 (Bain­bridge). Removal of enlarged nodules and secondary deposits in skin, January 22, 1907 (Bainbridge). Condition when enzyme treatment was begun: full enzyme treatment instituted twenty-four days after radical operation. Recurrent, irremovable cancer of left side of chest and glands of neck; liver enlarged, probably cancerous general condition poor.” This is a fair sample of what surgically is understood by “ a thorough, scientific test.” According to the above the cancer of the breast had existed for not far short of three years, and the case had failed twice surgically before a real enzyme treatment was, as a last resort, undertaken.

Dr. Morton’s treatment with 5 to 10 minims of “ tryp­sin” thrice weekly during some six months in 1906 may be dismissed as no treatment at all. I doubt whether with the strengths then on sale, which no endeavours of mine could persuade manufacturers to increase, the patient received in all more than one of the doses men­tioned in this book—viz., 1,000 tryptic units. According to Bainbridge’s report, and its author, as the surgeon concerned, perhaps knows the facts better than any anonymous critic, the order of events was the very opposite of that usually assumed. The knife failed twice before Bainbridge evoked the ferments. There might, indeed, be some point, if little truth, in the statement here referred to, had the patient derived any benefit at all from “ submission to the knife.”

Looking back over the field of my researches since the

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