THE CANCER
PROBLEM 121
tion
and disappearance of these asexual structures, sometimes quick, are often
exceedingly slow, though sure. Not that it is likely that the surgeon has
removed his last malignant tumour, but that, as one of the results of the work*
begun more than sixteen years ago, the physician has possibly had forged
for him a light and not dangerous weapon, only second, if not equal, in potency
to the surgeon’s knife.**
* Most of the work has been carried out
in Edinburgh, latterly with grants from the Moray Research Fund and Carnegie
Trustees.
** As later events have proved, this
estimate—with deference to certain transparently anonymous critics—was much too
modest. The pancreatic ferments, trypsin and amylopsin, when directed scientifically
against the living cells of cancer or sarcoma, are infinitely more potent
than the knife of any surgeon !