14 THE ENZYME TREATMENT OF CANCER
Krukenberg.
Thus it came about that, while the line of first advance was purely
embryological, later a junction could be effected with the science of
stereo-chemistry, and a further base for operations obtained in the fundamental
discoveries of Pasteur on the asymmetry of naturally occurring organic
compounds.
The
following remarks* (literally translated), by Professor F. Blumenthal, of
Berlin, concerning “ trypsin” and cancer are of interest: “ For a long time the
trypsin-therapy of Beard awakened greater hope. This depends upon the quick
digestion of the cancerous tumour by trypsin. If trypsin or pancreatin be
injected into a cancer, one notes a fairly quick softening of the same, leading
to a liquefaction, which is aseptic, not made up of pus. In some cases it
appears that in small and readily accessible tumours it has been possible with
the help of trypsin to cause the tumour to disappear. I will recall only the
case in the aural clinic of Munich. In larger tumours, especially with
metastases, I have only had failures. Successes also seem to he lacking in
mouse tumours, as Bashford reported.**
In the treatment with
* Blumenthal,
F., Innere Behandlung und Fursorge bei Krebskranken,” in Zeitschr. f.
Krebsforschung, 1910, vol. x., PP 137-138.
** It would appear not to have occurred to Professor
Blumenthal that this statement might have reference to inert ferments. Since
the experiments, which must be supposed to have led to this erroneous
conclusion, have never yet been published, and since they are, indeed, not
mentioned in a single word in the Third Scientific Report of the Imperial
Cancer Research Fund, published in 1908. and, lastly, since there are no
scientific or other evidences extant to show that ferments of any kind or sort
had ever been employed in these unpublished experiments, I feel bound to ask
Professor Blumenthal to explain, as a scientific man, why he cites these
unpublished experiments and nonexistent evidences ? It is common enough to
note in scientific publications that published experiments or evidences have
been ignored by the author, but it is something quite new to find unpublished
experiments and mythical evidences cited in a