CANCER.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2592, 28 August 1909, Page 1 (Supplement)

CANCER.

• ; - rns&'k, '/*•'«(By Burton J. Hendrick, i §r /esult.of recent progress in'cnn/earcli, Professor Ehrlich, the 2eGerman investigator, declared - ft i\ "the beginning of the end of the 4 .cer problem is in sight. The ultjliuto conquest of the disease, he said, is’ as certain as was the capture of Port Arthur after tho Japanese had taken the first trench. It is to the cancer laboratories of the United fctates, he continued, that European investigators noiv look for the most important results. As a matter/of fact, inanv of -fche discoveries upon lvlneh Ehrlich, based his optimistic statements were .made first on this side of the Atlantic. The medical profession has learned more about cancer in the last six yearn than in the preceding six thousand. True as this statement is, however, it ■ must not he misconstrued. No cancer has been cliscov&iccl. 1 livestimtors have penetrated many secrets of the disease, but they have not yet restored a single human sufferer to health. Tho cancer investigations of the last few years have revealed certain hitherto unknown principles that will eventually assume great importance in the practical treatment of the diseases • MORTALITY FROM CANCER. '| In all probability, cancer is the worst physical scourge with which we have to‘deal. It annually destroys half as many lives as tuberculosis; hut it is an even greater menace, because, whereas the mortality from tuberculosis steadily decreases year by year, that from cancer steadily increases, Ine actual facts even medical men themselves hesitate to discuss. Hot many realise, for' example, that, in England, of all women who have reached the age of thirty-five years, one in every eight dies of cancer, and one in every eleven men ? Yet the latest official report or the Registrar-General of England coldly declares that this is the present situation. Whether the same figures ap- ■ fly to the United States cannot be deterinined with available statistics; but as living conditions and medical practice represent about the same standards in both, countries, the probability is that they do. Indeed, medical science would not be surprised to learn that the mortality is greater in the United States than elsewhere. We pride ourselves on our general prosperity and enlightenment, and those seem precisely the two fantors that chiefly encourage the growth of cancer. Spread out a map of the world, and mark the countries that have progressed farthest in material well-being, in education, government, sanitation! and other essentials of modern civilisation; those are the countries that suffer most from the cancer plague. In the eastern world, not Asia or Africa, hut enlightened Europe; •in the western, not Mexico, Honduras, or Panama, but the United States and Canada—these are the countries most grievously afflicted. No savage tribe is- absolutely immune, but cancer assails most violently those peoples that have the highest points in civilisation. And not only this, but it apparently hears heaviest upon the most sanitary and enlightened parts of these countries. In Europe the nations that suiter most are not Russia or Hungary 01 Italy or Spain,, hut, Germany,- France, Sweden, Norway, and, above all, England. In London, the greatest mortality is found, not in the East End, hut 'in Hamnstead, Marytehone. and Chelsea, which include tho City s wealthiest parts. Similarly, m New York, the Russian Jews /and Italians who so largely populate the crowded tenement sections are comparatively Immuno, whereas the more sanitary parts <jf the town are favorite breedmgrplaces. Where diseases of known contagiousness, like tuberculosis, typhoid.. fever, diptheria, and pneumonia, most abound, cancer seems to find a less strong foothold than in other more salubrious sections, as by some mysterious and inexorable law of compensation it finds its way mamly into the homes of-the prosperous and enlighten-. ' ed. _ ; . - '. . . ■

cancer a - disease OF HIGHLY J DEVELOPED CIVILISATION. j Thus cancer, like death itself, apparently loves a shining mark. It strikes, not so frequently at the vicious, the uncleanly, the miserable, but at , those lives that promise most to them- -j selves and their communities. In pn- , sons, insane asylums and workhouses it is only exceptionally found. Among . men according to experienced mvesti- : gators, few. drunkards become cancer- , ens, and, among women,, few prosti- : tutes Married women more frequently die from this cause, . than unmarried, and/fertile women more, frequently than barren Among animals, reptiles _ are . practically thb only speciesr-in cancers have not been found, but it is the domesticated animals, or those living in closest association with man, that suffer most. Thus horses, cows, nigs, parrots Canary birds, mice, rats—all these have cancer; and it is the closest animal associate o, man, the dog, that is the most commonly afflicted. If all the lap-dogs of Fifth Avenue and our fashionable quarters were examined, a considerable proportion would be found to be afflicted with one or more malignant tumors. In. all probability, the: prevalence of cancer in the most civilised communities and in the most sanitary quarters is explained by the fact that it is. an affliction of middle and post-middle life. - Among savage peoples and nations where only elementary sanitation i s practised, and the food supply is/»r--‘re"ular, tho death rate is higher, the length of life is shorter, and infant mortality is greater. A smallci .percentage of the population, in otner words, reaches the cancerous age. ihus Mnost scientists would explain the comparative absence of cancer among prostitutes by the brutal truth that only a «mall number live long enough to become subject to the disease. 1 hose con- . siderations bring us face to face wrh imost startling circumstance: -that. Nature seems to be subtly attempting to undo much of the work of modern me-. T dical science. We save yearly by clipntheria antitoxin the lives of thousands of babies and children, only that they may grow up: to become victims of can- . -eer/ We rescue many thousands - of, -young men and women trom tuber-. ./ : so that they may r§ap,.^^g • Whirlwind, -an -even mo/er dreadful '-■ iadv. Some economists have explained tli/ great' famines/of' India P.ftvthe - b Ground that modern sanitation has so decreased the ddath rate that the couniv V cannot sustfin .increased popu r ■M%-, • »md likewise the increase in can- « 'gfpk MCOiinled.fbr, not aite increase.: in virulence, ISHL fact that modern medical d its; merciful >prk" ofi..pro- ’] , is simply providing the

WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT THE DISEASE.

The Progress Made by the World’s Scientists. X

a “McClure’s Magazine.”) Inasmuch as sanitation! lias reached a high development in this country, the likelihood is that, unless the malady is checked, it will become our greatest national scourge. Until 1900, however, little progress had been made. The attitude of science had been for' many years one of hopeless pessimism. Modern medical progress had almost scratched the word “incurable” from its lexicon j cancer, however, was v 6till looked upon as one of the fundament-.! facts of nature, like death itself with which we could hardly interfere. Iho cause of the disease had been the agelong riddle of pathological science. The greatest medical minds of the nine-? teenth century had attacked the problem and had retired humiliated. The endless search for the cancer parasite, the fact that forty or fifty different organisms had been described as the specific cause, had brought the whole subject more or less into disrepute. But up to this time the investigators had not had a fair chance at the problem. In the study of cancer they had not been able to utilise the experimental method. History discloses the' fact that nearly all great medical discoveries are the result of experiments on living animals. From the time wdien Galen cut open the arteries of a dog, and found that they actually contained blood, and not, as the most respectable schoolmen declared, simply “air,” to the. day when Behring evolved the diphtheria anti-toxin by experimenting upon, guinea-pigs, animals have supplied the basis of nearly all medical progress. And m the study of contagious diseases great advancement has - doc*: made only in those affections that can readily be transmitted to animals. We know much about typhoid fever and tuberculosis, for laboratory animals can be readily infected with these, diseases and thus furnish the ground-work for experimentation; we know all about scarlet fever and measles —we have not even discovered the causative germs—-.—-because animals are naturally immune to these infections. A similar condition of affairs had blocked cancer research. Nearly all animals have the disease in nature, but no method had been found, of readily transpiittmg it to them. Several irivestigator S -=had even experimented upon themselves, _ injecting into their own skins small pieces of human cancer; in no case, however, had a malignant growth supervened. One or two investigators, especially Hanau in Germany and Moreau in France, had reported actual success in transplanting cancerons tumors from mouse to mouse, but their results had made little impression, and, by the time the new, interest in the subject began, had been entirely forgotten. INSIDE A CANCER LABORATORY. But all this has changed. There are five American laboratories now in which animal experimentation in cancer is extensively carried on —the Gratwick Laboratory at Buffalo, the Medical Schools of’Cornell, Harvard, and the University of Pennsylvania, and the Rockefeller Institute in New York. White mice and white rats and a smaller number of dogs furnish the' foundation for this work. The average cancer laboratory looks more like a breeder’s establishment than .a , scientific headquarters., Upon the shelves are dozens of cages, filled with hundreds, in some cases thoxisands, of white mice and rats in different stages of the disease. The first sensation, on entering such a room, is naturally one of repulsion; on closer inspection, however, the situation is not so painful as the imagination at first'conceires. If the animals suffer, they give few outward indications of the fact. The mice are active, playful, sometimes quarrelsome —that is, they behave in every way like normal animals; they keep their coats clean and glossy, eat voraciously, and run about their cages as actively as their healthy brethren. Even mice in which good-sized tumors have developed frequently give- birth to young, and suckle, and care for -them p and in setae cases, in search; for society, they eat through the cages into those adjoining. Among human beings there is no physical suffering from cancer except in the latest stages, and thousands of patients do not suffer acutely even 'then. It is something of a relief to learn therefore, that practically no mice used for experimental purposes, and very few rats, ever reach the period when really acute pain sets in. Their tumors, for the most’ part, are hard nodules; if you pinch them tightly, the animal does not give the slightest indication of pain. As soon as they ulcerate—the period when, in human beings, suffer-; itig begins—the mice almost invariably die? If they do not, they ace. chloroformed, for they have then lost their usefulness for experimental purposes. Each animal "is carefully marked — a dash of purple dye on the tail, a spot of red on the back—for identification. To each is assigned a special card in an elaborate card catalogue; and upon this one can read its life history and trace the day-by-day development of its affliction.

Eight years ago Dr Leo Loeb, then of the Chicago Polyclinic and now Assistant Professor of Pathology at the University of Pennsylvania, exhibited before a medical society in Boston several white rats with large growing malignant tumors. Dr Loeb explained that these growths had not developed naturally upon . the animals, but; had been transplanted to them. He had ; discovered a white rat with a large sarcomatus cancer on the thyroid gland, and had injected small pieces into,, the exhibited animals. The medical wprlcl at first refused to consider the matter seriously; in fact, Dr Loeb had not only conclusively demonstrated tho transplant ability of cancer, but had made the first' accurate observations of ris. method of growth. He clearly proved that a malignant tumpr. could , be transferred from one. animal of ideptically the same species. -Thus rat. cancer' such as he originally experimented with, could be transferred only to a raf>. He tried it upon guinea-pigs and heps, hut always tailed, and he could noteven make it grow upon mice. More remarkable still, this sarcoma, which found its. first habitat on a white rat, would not develop upon a grey one. The only exception was furnished by a hybrid animal—a cross between a grey and white rat—upon which a transplantation was finally made I, In later experiments, Dr./Loeb,; as : well ns . his successors, had similar; experiences. A few years ago he came of a Japanese waltzing little grey ana white rodent that has.the peculiarity of almost'constant circular motion—upon which a natural caricer was growing/ All attempts to transplant this upon popular American ',var rietiea.of white and grey mice failed, 1 and; I)r,Loeb gahiwapic. the, mar-ket-to find more of the Japanese breed.

Ten- he finally succeeded,; he had no difficulty *in 'making the .'tumor grow upon them; • V NO CANCER CELLS WHERE TU ERE HAVE NOT BEEN CANCER CELLS BEFORE. More interesting still was Dr. Loeb’s demonstration of the manner in which the cartcors grew. His method was to take a small section, .perhaps no larger .than a pinMioad, and inject it under the skin, it was always at'this point ofinoculation that the malignant tumor ultimately appeared. Dr. Loeb soon observed that in no case had he really, started a- new growth. The tumor that had spontaneously developed in his first animal simply continued to grow upon tile second. A microscopic examination disclosed that, when the small piece- of cancer was implanted in the new body, its central portion soon died and became putrescent, only the edges,' which came into contact with the tissue of the host, remaining alive. It was always from these peripheral cells that the growth developed. Never did it start from the tissue of the new animal. The transplanted cells, that is, did not set the surrounding tissues on fire —did not infect them. No cancer cells, developed where there had not been cancer cells before. Dr Loeb had done precisely what the gardener does when he takes a plant from ope garden and places it in another; ,he does not create a new growth, he simply finds new soil for an old one. This is exactly what, happens when a human being, sick with cancer;, develops secondary growths in. other parts of the body. These “metastases,” as they are called scientifically, are not independent tumors; they are caused by the fact that certain cells of the primary growth get into the blood or lymph and., are lodged in other parts of tho t« dy, where they grow. This is evident torn the fact that the secondary growths have all the characteristics of the first. If a cancer of the lung, for example, forms a metastasis in the liver, the new tumor is formed, not of liver tissue, but of lung. A piece of lung, that is, starts growing on the liver., If a can-f cer of the stomach metastasizes in the breast, a piece of stomaoh simply arises on this exterior surface. At first blush this seemed to do away with the idea that a specific organism caused cancer, or that the disease was contagious. Apparently Dr Loeb had at last found the cancer microbe— and this turned out to be merely the cancer cell; and apparently the only way of transmitting it was the deliberate transplantation of this cell from one animal body into another of the same species. Further experiments also seemed to indicate that cancer was not contagious, at, least ,in the commonly accepted meaning of the word. pieces were placed in cages full of rat§, but no animals became infected. Cancer cells were mixed with their food, ■tit the rats which devoured them in large quantities did not “catch” thqV . sease. Dr Loeb injected into selected animals certain fluids present in cancer growths; these frequently developed, cancers, but an examination of the fluids showed, in all cases,/that they contained cancer cells. He then« subjected the cancerous tissue to certain chemical processes that killed the cells, but which, in all probability, would not have killed the microbes, had any been present. But he obtained no cancer grafts from any material in which the life of the cell itself had been destroyed. These and other experiments which soon followed, notably those of Professor C. O. Jensen of Copenhagen, aroused universal interest in the study of cancer. Experimentalists began ransacking the world for mice and rats in which natural malignant tumors had developed. Professional dealers, tempted by large rewards, kept the closest watch upon their stock, and, up to the present time, have sent nearly one thousand such animals to the several laboratories engaged in the.work. The living mouse thus becomes for cancer research wliat the test tube is for ordinary bacteriological work. In no field of investigation are such quantities of animals used. The Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London has had thirty thousand in six years. In three years the Buffalo Laboratory has used twenty thousand. In the same time the Rockefeller Institute has had fifteen thousand rat§ and mice under observation. The necessity of having so many animals explains why the experiments are practically limited to rats and mice. Not only is the initial cost lower, but the little rodents are easier to watch and care for.

Attention has been called to certain facts that seem to- controvert the microbe theory; in one important respect, however, cancer growth Tesembles that of bacteria and disease-bearing parasites. Like disease germs, the cancer cell has unlimited power of. proliferation. And, again, as with microbes,; ? pow«r -increases in virulence 1 as the cells are transplanted from .animal to animal: If you inject a culture of typhoid bacteria into a guinea-pig it grows at first only with moderation. If you take this culture from this guineapig and inject it into . another,-.it reproduces more rapidly; and so on from ani-. nial to airinialL As • long. as . soil—or) food—is provided, there is practically no limit to growth. CANCER CELL THE ANARCHIST OF THE BODY.

Cancer cells behave in practically the * same way, and it is only in its marvellous reproductive capacity that cancer tissue materially differs from normal 1 tissue. Under the microscope the can-/ cer cell and the- normal cell appear as virtually the same . thing.. In; pur - imp-; / giriation we associate cancer with every- ’ thing disgusting - and horrible; looked at through the microscope, however, it is really very beautiful. It assumes millions of . delicate, intricate forms, resembling hoaivfrost in its fine network,, . its crystalline arid constantly varying tracery. This tissue becomes a menace only because it hah the power pf persistent and unlimited growth. General body cells reproduce themselves only slightly.; normal tissue is constantly wearing out, and now cells grow to take its place ; the body cells; that, is, re- . produce only for regenerative purposes. One’s .thumb, for example, reaches a certain size,arid then stops; the tissue cells that compose it multiply only to replace, wear ana tear. If the colls grew uninterruptedly we should all develop into frightful Brobdignagians. But a subtle influence, called'by scientists . the power .of organisation, [stir/ pervises this growth, keeps each'mem 1 ber in check, arid makes it develop sym 7 ihetrically in accordance with the requirements of the body and the external, world. But this power of organisation has no influence upon the cancer cell; It is the anarchist of 'the body; it defies ‘all laws, acknowledges no responsibilities—simply on an absolutely aimless course of its [own, and grows, And.' grows, 'and jgrows.' / It: ia Inorjobuftl /tissue gene wild—rurin'ing amuck. , In; . cluftisy" fashion it reproduces tbe- form arid sometimes the functions of the particular part of - the body on .which'it; starts: A eancer of-the hreast. iu ;woirien secretes a .rudimentary.; l caSein[;..a'c cancer-of the stoiriach has traces of gas:trie juices : 1 a ..cancer jof /the /pancreas has vestiges of trypsin,—the,idigc'stivo fluid, which the normal pancreas: .pro-.

vides; a cancer of the skin, like the skin itself, tends to hornify. So far sis science can discover" this. cancer tissue' m itself contains ho death-dealing properties. It simply grows and grdy.'s, digs down into surrounding tissue and frequently involves' and destroys a’ bodily organ, such as the stomach or liver, which is,indispensable to human life. In the largo majority of cases, the unequal pressure upon the "rowing mass causes part of the cancer tissue to die, ulceration sets in, and the wound, like any other exposed wound, becomes infected with blood-poisoning bacteria. Cancer victims die, that is, not from any destructive toxin -inherent in the cancer growth itself, but usually from toxemia. THE QUESTION OF.HEREDITY IN CANCER. Results recently obtained in experimental .breeding indicate that cancer is hereditary—at least in mice. In the whole perplexing subject there has probably been no more controversial topic than this. Families in which cancer seems abnormally prevalent are familiar facts Of everyday life. Several of these apparently cancerons families, the most notable being the Ifonapartes, have, figured in history. Napoleon himself died of cancer of the stomach, as did his father, his brother Lucien, and liis sisters Caroline and Pauline. Among human beings, however, cancer is so common that any large family is almost certain to have its victims. On the other hand, the fact that when cancer is common in a family it almost always takes the same shape in all sufferers—the cancerous Bonapartes, for example,, all dying of cancer of the stomach—supports the popular idea that herey is an important factor. Recent experiments at the Harvard Medical School, conducted by Dr E. E. Tyzzer, tend to substantiate this impression. Dr Tyzzer found a female mouse with a large growing tumor and mated her with a nomal healthy mouse. In a short time this couple had one hundred descendants, all of which were kept under close observation. It takes about five months for a mouse to reach maturity—reach the period, that is when it becomes susceptible to cancer. _ Mortality among the young animals’is high, and of this brood, one hundred strong, thirty-five died of common mice infections before attaining mature age. Of the sixty-five that reached the eancei*ous period, twenty developed natural tumors, of which they ultimately died. One in every three in other words, fell victims to the mother’s disease. According to Dr Bashford, of the British Cancer Institute) one out of every twenty-five hundred mice naturally develops cancer. Unquestionably the disease is fat more common than this; but the frightful mortality among Dr. Tyzzer’s one hundred mice can be explained only on the grounds of heredity. That the descendants of this cancerous parent inherited the disease outright, that the cancer cell or possibly a cancer parasite was directly transmitted from mother to offspring, does not necessarily follow. The tuberculous children of tuberculous parents inherit, not the disease, but a constitution especially adapted to it, and so these cancerous mice probably derive from their parent an increased susceptibility. It was at the Buffalo Laboratory, under the direction of Dr. Gaylord ana Dr G. A. Clowes, that one of the most important modern discoveries concerning cancer was made. Because they believed that cancer was a contagious disease, Drs Gaylord and Clowes were l*d to investigate tho question if immunity. DOES NATURE EVER CURE. CANCER.

Medical science has-now established one fundamental fact: that, in practically all bacterial infections, the employment of drugs, as direct curatives, is virtually useless. No factor, extrinsic* to the body itself, ever cured a human being, of typhoid fever, diphtheria, tuberculosis, or any other bacterial disease.* The really curative agency is this great physical power called immunity. This may be defined as the resistance manifested by the normal body to any intrinsic, forces -that seek to destroy it. The animal organism is not passive in the face of these attacks; when assailed, it rouses itself and brings against the invader powerful', though hitherto quiescent forces. For every body-that assails it from without)- it produces an anti-body within; for every toxin evolved by the invading bacteria, it produces its antitoxin. Though these forces .in .some shape always exist within us, is | is only when the specific disease appears that they manifest themselves in useful form. ,

In the minds of those who believed , that cancer was contagious, the ques- . tion naturally arose: Do the laws of . immunity apply to it? "When the ] cancer cell began its destructive work. , did the human body lie supine and helpless, or did. it attempt to throw it off? .If so, .did it ever succeed? In human cases, natural recoveries from cancer were ’ hardly known; this did not necessarily imply that. the body manifested no resistance- tb it.- Thirty years Ago, tuberculosis 1 ; Was regarded-. ■ as hopelessly incurable; -no w we know .- that its cause is a specific micro-organ-ism ; that the body manufactures a natural resistance against it; and that, if attacked properly at the right time it can bd cured. In other words, Nature herself can cure tuberculosis; when human ingenuity discovers the mechanism that it uses, and evolves some way of applying it artificially, this affliction will cease to he a universal terror. The question now r arose with cancer : Does Nature ' hepself' ■’Wert- cupe/' tins malady Tf so, do the general principles of immunity apply to it? If we recover from it once, can we ever have it again? If Nature does resist .it,: will , it: be possible/to discover and . apply the principles according to which Nature works? SOME MICE CAN BE INOCULATED WITH CANCERS, OTHERS NOT; WHY? In the early part of 1904, Dr Gaylord, returning from, a professional visit .to Europe, brought back to this country two of Professor Jensen’s cancerous mice. Both died on the train between New York, and Buffalo, but, from the cancer of one of them, several hundred mice were ultimately inoculated. At .this time the tumor- possessed high virulence, and, of every one hundred animals in which, .it was transplanted, sixty fell ill with'the disease. Hither'to'cancer investigators had all recorded the fact that a variable proportion of inoculated mice failed to develop tumors, but had attached no particular importance to it. When investigating the question of immunity, however, this initial circumstance might signify much,;.* Here the.. experimenter inject? >, one hundred mice of pr actic ally the same; size, age, and breed with identically -the- same cancer cells'; silty.contract the! disease and forty; do not. ['-Why-do {/these -forty escape ? Mhnfc. 'festly. there, mustbe an explanation ;

r r *Tho only.; apparent exceptions to this rtile .aro, the successful;.use of qumme in/malaria /and/ murcury in syphilis. not by (vegetable) bacteria, hut by animal parasites. / ■ ■ : .;/■ .: = -V

and this explanation must be found inside the animals themselves, inasmuch as the extrinsic conditions of the-ex - periment were identically the same in the- one hundred cases. Did the forty mice- that went through the experiment unharmed develop a natural resistance shat destroyed tho cancer cells and prevented their growth P Only experiment could show; meanwhile it was sufficient to observe that precisely the same thing happened in diseases in which; the laws of immunity appeared. If you injected pure cultures of diphtheria into- a hundred children, a large proportion would take tho disease, while a fow would escape. The immunity of file latter, that is, would be so powerful that the disease, even in its first stages, could make no headway. In two years the Buffalo Laboratory inoculated -1600 1 mice with the Jensen strain of tumor, and of these 1250 proved absolutely resistant. The remaining 350 animals, in which cancers developed, were kept under the closest observation. For this purpose, the Buffalo experimenters evolved an ingenious method of keeping records. For each animal, in addition to elaborate statistics, a separate chart was made. This represented a series of outline figures of a mouse, and upon these, at different intervals, were drawn jn silhouette pictures giving the shape ami exact size of the growing tumor. Thus after a few months, by glancing at drawings, -one saw precisely how the growth developed.

These records soon disclosed a momentous fact. While most of the cancers kept increasing in size until the animal died,’ a few clearly stopped growing, and others began to in many cases diminishing to the van-ishing-point. An inspection of the animals more graphically emphasised the same fact. In some the cancers grew as large as a hazel-nut or an almond, and then slowly began to grow smaller. When they disappeared, they left absolutely no trace, not even a scar, and there was no recurrence.. The skin 1 and liaif' above the spot where this malignant’ tumor had been became white; glossy and indistinguishable from the remaining surface. In the course of two years’ observation it developed that about 20 per cent of all mouse cancers ultimately disappeared. In a few cases these were fairly large; in most cases they were quite small, perhaps an eighth of an inch in diameter. In other words, the smaller tumor, the greater chance it had • to become absorbed. CANCER, IN PRINCIPLE, IS NOT AN INCURABLE DISEASE. What did this mean? Simply this: that cancer was a curable disease; the destructive cells did not necessarily mean death. Clearly Nature herself knew how to rid the animal body of this malignant growth. The presence of the cancer cell started into life certain forces that arose in all their might and threw off the incubus. These simple experiments for all time took human cancer out of the class of incurable diseases. Precisely how Nature accomplished this work is not known now, may, indeed, never be known; the method may be too complex for the human mind to grasp; but, in principle, the disease can be ipastered. And now investigators began to recall certain incidents that had for years spasmodically figured in medical literature, but which had never received"'serious consideration. These were the stofflies of so-called “spontaneous cures” of cancer in human beings. Now and then for the last two hundred years practitioners have arisen in their local medical societies and entertained their colleagues with marvellous tales. A patient had* fallen ill of malignant cancer; the growth had rapidly progressed ; it had been cut out, and recurred; it had been extirpated again, and again it had come back, and the patient at last had been hopelessly returned to his friends to die. A few months had passed, and ]o! the cancer had entirely disappeared. The patient had become .healthy andvbusy about his daily tasks. Learned medical societies usually howled down these picturesque anecdotes; the physician who countenanced them was discredited, and sometimes absolutely disgraced. Dr Gaylord’s mice, however, proved that many of these stories were unquestionably true. Ask Dr James Ewing, of Cornell, Professor

Ehrlich, Dr E. H. Bashford, or any of the leading cancer experts, this question: “Do human beings ever spontaneously recover from cancer?” and the answer is always a quiet “Yes.” „ Dr Gaylortf has ransacked medic.'! literature for specific instances; and, amid a mass of more or less uncertain matter, has found fourteen cases concerning which there cannot be the slightest doubt. Unquestionably there are thousands that are not recorded, and many more of which the medical profession, and even the patients themselves,- know nothing.* PERHAPS MOST OF US, AT SOME ■ TIME, HAVE HAD CANCERS. .The mice experiments show that most recoveries take place when the cancers are very small. Upon all of us little cancers may have appeared and then -vanished without our knowledge, Especially would this be the case if they attacked the internal organs, as they constantly do. Autopsies show, by the presence of little atrophied nodules, that nearly all human beings at some time have' had tuberculosis and, in many cases, have recovered; perhaps likewise we have nearly all of us had cancer. In the case of cancer, autopsies would'not disclose this, were it a fact, for; when the cancers disappear, 'they leaye.no trace. *

IF YOU HAVE CANCER ONCE, AND GET WELL, YOU WILL -NOT HAVE IT AGAIN. , _ . Thus Nature, in cancer as in diphtheria, starts forces that sometimes rid the body of the disease. And Dr Gay-, 1 lord and Dry Clowes showed that the parallel extended further; in cancer, also, these new resisting forces remained in the animal and protected it against a second attack. If you have chncor once, and recover from it, you will almost never have it -'again! In other words, the great principle of inimukity applies to this affliction as much as to measles, smallpox, and other contagious diseases. The animals in the Buffalo Laboratory that had spontaneously recovered were usfed for these further experiments, thirty mice that had spontaneously recovered being inoculated again.' In these no tumors developed. Ten were inoculated a third time and still were adamant to the cancer cell. Recent experiments, while not weakening the general principle, have shown that immunity in cancer is not quite so constant .as this. It is now found that a very, small proportion of spontaneously recovered mice can be inoculated again: but that practically all that Survive this second inoculation are proof against a third. Even in contagi*For practical reasons it should' be einphasised that the cahcens disappeared in these mice Tvere those which had been inoculated. The disappearance of natural tumors, as lndicat-. ed. lin > the text, is a rare occurrence. Gt, course no human patient, m the early stages'«>£ cancer, should Relay an operation in the hope that; the tumor may disappear spontaneously.

DOGS CAN BE CURED OF CANCER.

oas diseases the immunity principle does not always, work, instances not being uncommon in which one person may have the same disease twice in the same year. IMMUNITY IN CANCER NOT THE SAME AS IN BACTERIAL DISEASES. Clearly there was immunity in cancer; but was it of the same nature as that which exists in bacterial diseases? In these latter infections the molecules that destroy the destructive bacteria and their poisons exist in the serum, or the liquid part of the blood. Medical science cures _ diptheria, dysentery, spinal meningitis, and sometimes tetanus by injecting the serum of an animal-that has recovered from the disease. The action of this serum is constant and well understood. It degenerates the bacteria in the diseased body, sometimes destroys them outright, and prepares them for final extermination within the white blood corpuscles. Does the serum of the recovered cancer patient have a similar effect upon the cancer cells?- In order to answer this question, Dr Gaylord injected the serum of spontaneously recovered mice into animals with large growing cancers. The first cases promised well, but subsequent experiments, in this country and in Europe, have not yielded similarly encouraging results. The leading investigators do not now believe that these immune properties are present in the serum. The immune serum does not act upon the cancer cell as does the immune serum in a bacteriah disease; that is, it does not destroy the cancer cell or have much appreciable influence upon its p-rowth. No natural protection and resistance against cancer exists, but it is different from anything known. The most trifling circumstances frequently inhibit the growth of the cancer cell. How transplanted tumors grow only in animals of the same species, and how a transplantation cannot be made from a white rat to a grev rat, and vice versa, has already been described. Moreover, in many cases cancers can be transplanted from one mouse only to another mouse of the same color and species and living in the same locality. Thus it has been found that Berlin white mice* will take tumors that have grown on other Berlin white mice, but that Christiania white mice will not. These and other facts make it clear that, while a definite immunity has been established', it is something more delicate, more subtle,, more illusive than anything Hitherto’ known: To the lay mind,, the demonstration of immunity in cancer would seem an added indication that the disease must be contagious. * According to the scientist, however,, this does not necessarily follow. This point involves too many technicalities • for discussion, in this place ; it is well' known, however, that immunity reactions exist towards other extrinsic forces than microbe infections.

ANIMALS CAN BE VACCINATED AGAINST CANCER,

When the law r according to which this immunity works is discovered, the solution of the cancer problem will be finally in hand. Meanwhile, though the things learned so far are of the utmost importance, they cannot yet be put to practical use. Thus Ehrlich has demonstrated, as a principle, that animals, and probably human beings, can be vaccinated against cancer. He inoculates a mouse with a weak strain, a new tumor grows, and in the majority of cases it retrogresses. The mouse is then proof against inoculation with more malignant strains. The difficulty, however, is that, in order to secure protection, an original tumor must develop, and, in a small proportion of cases, this does not regress, but becomes malignant and kills the animal. If we used this system of vaccination with men and women, therefore, we should kill a considerable percentage of all those treated.

Though we cannot cure cancer injiuman beings, we can cure it in dogs: Among these animals, a particular cancerous” growth, known technically as a lymphosarooma, is a virtual scourge. It is especially prevalent among highbred animals—aristocratic bulldogs, pet spaniels and the like —though also frequent among common breeds. Though not infectious in the technical sense, it has a certain analogy to infectious disease, which fact has led Dr Bashford, the English expert, to deny that it is a cancer at all. All the leading German, French, and American investigators totally disagree with him; microscopic examination, as well as its method of growth and transplantation, clearly demonstrates its cancerous nature. Dr James Ewing, Professor of Pathology at Cornell University, has studiedtthis tumor thoroughly, and definitely proved that it is a cancer. It was at the Loomis Laboratory, through experiments conducted by Dr S. P. Beebe and Dr. George W. Crile, of Cleveland,- that its curability was demonstrated. ,:j. At, these experiments . lime dogs an succession were: -cured- 'of malignant growths and restored to normal health. The experimenters accomplished this result simply by transfusing into the diseased animals the blood of other dogs that were demonstrated to be immune : to this type of cancer. They inoculated a considerable number of dogs; in some the tumor developed and in others it failed to do so. The latter were therefore regarded as resistant to the disease. After the growth had gained marked headway' and the patients manifested ■ nearly all the symptoms of cancer in its last stages, practically all the ilood in their bodies was drained off. In its place was transfused the blood of animals which had “proved resistant to inoculation. In nine out of ten cases the } sick dogs got well; their tumors entirely disappeared, their condition became normal, and their own blood could then lie used to effect similar cures. These experiments seem to indicate that, while the immune properties in cancer are not found in the serum when, it is separated from the blood, they may be found when the whole body of the blood is used. Another explanation is that the blood of the diseased animal contained nourishment especially adaptable to the cancer cell, and that when this was withdrawn, the cancer cell was.virtually deprived of its food. On the other hajnd, the blood of the second animal furnished no nourishment to the cancer, as evidonced by the fact that, after the* nio dilation of the growth, it failed to develop. When this blood, therefore, was transfused into the body of the diseased. dog, it supplied wholesome nourishment to his normal tissues, but absolutely none to the cancer cells, winch consequently atrophied and disappearFor dogs afflicted with this particular tumor science hae thus discovered that; great medical desideratum-rSn actual cure for cancer. In the course of _ the writer’s visit to theUuffalo Laboratory a large, fine, valuable .’English was brought in fearfully afflicted with this dieeasef the W at.once begun,uind iu a fmwweeks h? will un-, mieptionablyjbe seut-.bafijc entirely we Whether dogs suffering from other I forms of malignant tumor can be sun-

ilarly cured is not known, inasmuch as this lymphosarcoma is the only type with which "they can be inoculated. It is impossible to repeat the experiment on mice, because their veins and arteries are eo small and delicate that blood transfusions cannot be made. With human beings the reproduction of the conditions of the experiment is absolutely impossible. We should be compelled to bring together two individuals, one suffering from a particular type of cancer and one who had spontaneously recovered from identically the same affliction. For practical purposes it would be impossible to accomplish this, and the experiments, therefore 5 outside of their practical importance in restoring suffering dogs to health, apf interesting chiefly for the new Jigin which they shed upon the general prob* lem, and for the additional demonstraction that cancer, in itself, is not incurable.

All the facts described above, indeed, have placed the question upon an entirely new footing. Medical science is now on tiptoe in the face of this problem. Everything is expectation. The important facts already learned have only stimulated the desire for more. After finding out so many things, it is not likely tliat experimental science has reached its limit. No new fact about cancer would now surprise the medical world. No one has yet succeeded in assimilating all these new facts, in placing them in their proper sequence and wringing from them the great generalisation that will yield the secret. But then, the experimental science of cancer is really less than ten years oJ£. This malady is by no means so myst ous to the present generation as wete3 the common contagious diseases to ou‘ grandfathers. It was not until that" Wonderful genius, Louis Pasteur, brushed away the superstitions and absurdities of three thousand years, and showed the cause of these infections, that modern medical science and modern sanitation began. That some similarly penetrating mind —perhaps it is at work even now in some obscure pathological laboratory—will penetrate the meaning of all the recently discovered facts is the general expectation. The age-long pessimism has disappeared. Scientists now know that, in the usual sense of the term, cancer is not contagious. They know that heredity plays an important part in its development. Above everything else, they know what, ten years ago they would hardly have dared to imagine, that animals and human beings have it and spontaneously getwell. They know that Nature has he*? own method of curing it, that the grea& principles of immunity are applicable "fecit, and that underlying all these facts is'some broad general law which, when unearthed, will bring relief to hundreds of thousands of sufferers.