224 THE ENZYME TREATMENT OF CANCER
to
be aimed at, and that, as William of Occam long ago laid down, Entia non
sunt multiplicanda.
In
the following lines something must be said of two aspects of the writer’s
studies of pancreatic ferments and their uses. There are not many things in my
research career which fill me with greater satisfaction than the line of
reasoning and the conclusions as to the place of amylopsin in the enzyme
treatment of cancer. Amylopsin itself, no matter what the doses be, will not
cure cancer; but it cannot be dispensed with when pancreatic ferments, such as
trypsin, are employed against malignant disease. If trypsin had been as
successful hitherto in its mission in the treatment of cancer as amylopsin,
there would be many living who are now departed, and the literature of medicine
would contain fewer “scientific’ leaders upon “cancer booms.” Amylopsin was
introduced into the enzyme treatment, not because of the discovery of any
action upon cancer cells, and not because it was “thought ‘to digest’ the dead
cancer cells” (Bainbridge’s Report, p. 6), but because the conclusion was
reached, upon purely embryological grounds, that sufficiently potent injections
of amylopsin would remove all the bad symptoms leading up to something
identical with “ the vomiting of pregnancy” and with eclampsia itself, which
had arisen in very many cases in England, Italy, France, and elsewhere. In the
very first case in which it was “ tried,” as also in countless cases since that
time, amylopsin always removed these symptoms. But it is a curious commentary
upon what has been termed the “conservatism” of the medical profession, that
although injections of this enzyme were recommended for the treatment of
eclampsia, not a single case is known at present to the writer where this was
employed. So much for the place of science in “ medical science.”