36 THE ENZYME
TREATMENT OF CANCER
years.
Previous treatment : removal of growth from left breast, June 4, 1904 (Dr.
Edward W. Peet) ; radical operation refused. About one year later thirty-two
X-ray treatments (Dr. William J. Morton) ; trypsin, 5 to 10 minim doses, April
27 to October 31, 1906 (Dr. Morton). Radical operation, November 3, 1906 (Bainbridge).
Removal of enlarged nodules and secondary deposits in skin, January 22, 1907
(Bainbridge). Condition when enzyme treatment was begun: full enzyme treatment
instituted twenty-four days after radical operation. Recurrent, irremovable
cancer of left side of chest and glands of neck; liver enlarged, probably
cancerous general condition poor.” This is a fair sample of what surgically is
understood by “ a thorough, scientific test.” According to the above the cancer
of the breast had existed for not far short of three years, and the case had
failed twice surgically before a real enzyme treatment was, as a last resort,
undertaken.
Dr.
Morton’s treatment with 5 to 10 minims of “ trypsin” thrice weekly during some
six months in 1906 may be dismissed as no treatment at all. I doubt whether
with the strengths then on sale, which no endeavours of mine could persuade
manufacturers to increase, the patient received in all more than one of the
doses mentioned in this book—viz., 1,000 tryptic units. According to
Bainbridge’s report, and its author, as the surgeon concerned, perhaps knows
the facts better than any anonymous critic, the order of events was the very
opposite of that usually assumed. The knife failed twice before Bainbridge
evoked the ferments. There might, indeed, be some point, if little truth, in
the statement here referred to, had the patient derived any benefit at all from
“ submission to the knife.”
Looking
back over the field of my researches since the