INTRODUCTION 29
this
absence of amylopsin in the foetus. To this day, to my knowledge, such is the “
conservatism” of the medical profession, amylopsin has not been employed as an
injection in any case of threatened eclampsia.* But in cancer it has for some
years past been used along with trypsin, and it has never failed to perform its
task of removing the bad symptoms. The first case in which it was injected, in
1906, was that of a very distinguished artist and art-critic, who was suffering
from an advanced cancer, recurrent after three operations. I had previously
told his physician—a London one of high standing—when, almost to the day, his
patient would develop the bad symptoms. The first intimation was in a friendly
letter written from the patient’s club by himself, in the course of which he
complained of being drowsy, and said finally that he could hardly hold his pen
for this reason. Then his physician wrote that the patient showed high arterial
tension and albuminuria, and that he was about to inject amylopsin. Under the influence
of this ferment all the symptoms vanished in two days. Had trypsin been as
successful hitherto as amylopsin in its mission in the treatment of cancer,
very many who are now dead would still be among us.
How the term “ trypsin treatment “ came
to find its
* This is a very remarkable fact. To many physicians of both sexes the
writer has explained the scientific reasons for concluding that the source of
eclampsia was to be sought and found in an absence or deficiency of amylopsin
in the maternal blood, to be remedied, of course, by hypodermic or
intramuscular injections of genuine amylopsin of 2,000 units of activity per
cubic centimetre. So far as he is aware, though more than one of these has
expressed intentions of trying “ this scientific remedy, there is no sing]e
case of actual or threatened eclampsia, in which such injections were made.
Instead thereof, the barbarous remedy of stripping the capsules of the kidneys
is still often resorted to, and only recently a new device has been suggested
seriously—to wit, amputation of the breasts.