RETROSPECT 167
on
January 20, 1905, in a public lecture in Liverpool, “the secretion of that
important digestive gland, the pancreas, was clearly indicated as the
scientific means of routing cancer, nothing at all was known as to doses and
strengths of pancreatic injections, or even as to the proper modes of making up
potent and keeping solutions of trypsin and amylopsin. Failures galore must
have resulted, even if medical men had given the treatment to their best,
instead of to their very worst, cases— as a rule, to advanced inoperable, or to
post-operative recurrent inoperable, cases. There have, indeed, been many
failures, even without the list published by Dr. Bainbridge, but—there have
also been some successes. In the face of any successes, of Dr. Bainbridge’s own
words (p. 32), “That injectio trypsini, in some cases, seems to cause
more rapid disintegration of “ (to ‘ liquefy according to Beard) “cancerous tissue,”
and “that injectio amylopsini seems to diminish cachexia in some cases,
in accordance with the claims of Beard and others,” of what value are the
failures—what do they prove in science? There are few—indeed, there are
no—scientific discoveries of import to man which escape the like fate, if
others attempt to confirm them, or if, and more usually (such is human nature),
others seek to refute them. To take an instance suggested by a medical friend
with reference to this report, how many of those, who in one way or another,
with weak or with inert injections, or with minimal doses, or single
injections, or with none at all, have sought to test my conclusions, could
confirm the scientific researches of Starling on secretin ? Not one! From
some knowledge of the history of science, and of the receptions accorded by
mankind to many scientific discoveries of import to the human race, and from a
close knowledge and experience of the medical profession