CHAPTER 10 



Neoplastic Growths 



— In Animals and Plants 



10.1: Colchicine in Cancer Research 



Mitotic changes iiidiiccd ])y colchicine in a Crocker sarcoma of 

 the mouse were described by Proiessor A. P. Uustin, Sr., in 1934-^ 

 (Fig. 10.1) . This now recognized classic research marked a new trend 

 in the study of cancer. At that time, the toll of life from bacterial 

 diseases ^\■as declining as a result of the use of the sulfa drugs, and 

 the relative incidence of cancer was gaining the impressive figure it 

 has reached today in civilized countries. It is not surprising that the 

 discovery of a specific action upon mitosis, the metaphase arrest, at- 

 tracted Avide attention. This research made clear for the first time 

 the possibility of arresting cell division with chemicals acting specifi- 

 cally. Such a relation had, it is true, been demonstrated several years 

 earlier in the Brussels laboratory,-^' -■' but colchicine, being such a 

 unique chemical, helped greatly in convincing research men of the 

 possibility of cancer chemotherajn'. A. P. Dustin, Sr., grasped im- 

 mediately the potentiality of this new approach.-^ His 1934 publica- 

 tion anti the demonstration given by his school at the Second Inter- 

 national Cancer Congress, held in Brussels in 1936, markctl a turning 

 point and led many people to woik on neoplastic gro^vth. 



It is quite remarkable that colchicine, like other plant substances 

 used in popular medicine, such as chelidonine,-*^ may have been uti- 

 lized in cancer treatment long before that date. At least two French 

 textbooks of pharmacology^*^' •''" mention that Dominici, the great 

 French hematologist and radiotherapist who died in 1919, had ob- 

 served favorable effects of colchicine in cancerous patients who had 

 received X-ray Avhile under treatment for gout. \We have been unable 

 so far to discover the original text of Dominici's observation and his 

 publication. 1 he idea of some interrelation between gout and cancer 

 was mentioned in 1920 in Belgiiun by A. P. Dustin, Sr.-^ Again, 



[255] 



