INTRODUCTION 17
“normal
“somatic tissues. It is in very advanced cancer cases, where the tissues have
been much acted upon by the ferments and toxic products of cancer, and have
thereby been injured. In this connection the finds of Yoshimoto and Neuberg
concerning the auto-digestion of cancerous liver, and of portions bordering
upon the cancer, are of much import.
As
to the improvements in the treatment brought about by Sticker and Falk, I
content myself with the record of them, and make no comment beyond saying that,
in my opinion, no “trypsin-therapy” which is unaccompanied by abundant animal
amylopsin will be, or can be, satisfactory in the long run.
In
a long, interesting article, summing up what he considers to be our present
knowledge of the chemistry of cancer, published in the “ Ergebnisse der
Physiologic” (1910), Professor F. Blumenthal, of Berlin, has a reference to “
trypsin “ in cancer. Recalling his own investigations with Wolff, published in
1905 (Med. Klinik, No. 5), he states that (in the test-tube!) all the
tumours, five in number, were very easily attacked and pulled down by trypsin,
and in a footnote he adds: “These finds were the basis of the trypsin-therapy
of cancer.” In a more recent publication (German Journal of Cancer
Investigation, vol. x., p. 137), he makes a similar statement in these
words: “For a long time the trypsin-therapy of Beard awakened greater hope.
This depends upon the fact that the cancerous tumour is quickly digested by
trypsin” (in the test-tube!). On the other hand, the writer of the brief
article upon cancer in the new eleventh edition* of the “Encyclopaedia
Britannica” assigns as
* The prospectus
states that “ this new edition represents the results of a fresh survey,
undertaken in every department of knowledge by the most eminent authorities, up
to the year 1910.’’