226 THE ENZYME TREATMENT OF CANCER
of ridicule. However, on
January 18, 1907, the writer, in a letter to an old fellow-student, a
consulting and hospital physician in London, wrote as follows: “As to trypsin
and amylopsin, this is private, lest. . . . The real original ferment of the
pancreas gland, in my opinion, is trypsin. Amylopsin is a -modification of
trypsin. The latter probably acts by adding 2 molecules of hydroxyl, the other
6. Assuming T (trypsin) to be the substratum, to which these molecules are
attached, the two things would be like this (here there was a rough diagram in
the letter). How the trypsin molecules get slung together to form amylopsin is
more than I can say; but it does not seem to me a priori probable that a
gland should form four fundamentally different ferments.” At the time,
although, since “ science is prevision,” so much could be foreseen, the steps
needed to establish this in fact were not obvious. Later on, from the avidity
with which the leucocytes appeared to seize upon amylopsin, some further slight
evidence seemed to be presenting itself, but the mystery did not clear up. Then
came the paper by Dr. P. Tetens Hald,* and this contained some surprising
things concerning the two amylopsin injections on sale. It may be stated here,
that the reason why the writer had insisted that the amylopsin injection should
be free from trypsin was, because it had been found impossible to persuade the
manufacturers to increase the amylolytic strength of their trypsin injections
without diminishing the strength of trypsin. Owing to this, it appeared that
after some weeks of treatment any injection of trypsin was not as well borne as
previously. Dr. Hald tested two of
* Hald, P.
Tetens “Comparative Researches on the Tryptic Strength of Different Trypsin
Preparations, and on their Action on the Human Body,” in the Lancet, November
10, 1907, pp. 1371-1375.