32 THE ENZYME TREATMENT OF CANCER
1904
one of my main theses has been that, just as in normal development there was an
antithesis or opposite character of two generations— sexual and asexual respectively—so
the like antithesis obtained, of necessity, in the ferments employed by these
for their nutrition. The ferments of the asexual generation or trophoblast were
therefore the antitheses or opposites of the pancreatic ferments, trypsin and
amylopsin; and as cancer was in nature asexual generation (trophoblast), so its
ferments must be identical with those employed by the trophoblast of normal
development. All life-processes take place through the action of ferments, and
without these there would be no life, such as we know it. It follows from this
that the action of cancer ferments upon substances on which trypsin arid
amylopsin, or normal cell-ferments, will also act, cannot be the same as that
of the latter ; that is, the products of the fermentation must be different
when used upon the same substratum. The proof of this, and the answer in the
affirmative to the above question, has really been furnished quite recently by
German scientific chemists. In the paper by Professor Neuberg, already cited
(p. 12), he writes that “Comprehensive investigations into unusual ferment
phenomena of tumours have been made by E. Abderhalden, with P. Rona, A. H.
Koelker, F. Medigreceanu, and L. Pincussohn. They showed that often, but not
constantly, in human and animal tumours enzymes can be detected which split up
polypeptids and peptones quicker than normal cell-ferments do. In addition, it
was established that extracts of cancer (die Krebssafte) split up polypeptids
in entirely atypical fashion. While, for example, normally cell-ferments
hydrolize d-alanylglycyl-glycin to d-alanin and glycyl-glycyl, tumour fluid
splits it into glycocoll and d-alanyl-glycin. The pulling