542 Crown Gall-Animal Cancer Analogy 



by Ferdinand Blumenthal, its editor, on crown gall. Dr. Blumen- 

 thal was a reputable medical authority on kidney secretion changes 

 in various human diseases and director of the cancer laboratory 

 of the important Berlin Charity Hospital of Universitiits Institut 

 fiir Krebsforschung. Zeitschrijt fiir Krebsforschung was " the 

 oldest and most influential cancer journal in the world." ^' Smith 

 remembered having read another article ^^ on the same subject 

 by the same authors in the same journal. Some years before, he 

 had challenged German scientists who were skeptical of his claim 

 of resemblances between crown gall and cancer. When one of 

 his manuscripts was rejected by a German journal, he sent cultures 

 to some of them, and later revealed: ^® "One of my manuscripts 

 was rejected by a German journal as ' zu Botanisch ' ; a second 

 German critic said, " The disease has nothing in common with 

 cancer but its name,' while a third likened the tumor to smut balls 

 in maize, which it does not in the least resemble, and said all this 

 had been known in Germany for a long time." Now Smith was 

 reading papers on crown gall, prepared by German scientists. 

 A special section for the study of plant tumors was to be a part 

 of the Imperial Institute. He commented in his diary that night, 

 " The Germans are waking up a little! " 



April 29 Smith interrupted his studies at Johns Hopkins for a 

 few days to return to Washington and arrange his exhibits for 

 an address before the American Association for Cancer Research. 

 The meeting took place in the Army Medical Museum on May 1, 

 and of his address he said: " My paper came about ten thirty. 

 Room fairly well filled. I showed about 20 lantern slides and 

 spoke on Appositional Growth in Crown Gall and in Cancer. No 

 one contradicted me and Levin of New York spoke most flatter- 

 ingly of my work." At the meeting he found Dr. Lazarus-Barlow, 

 pathologist of the Middlesex Hospital, London, with whom he 

 had become acquainted at the International Medical Congress in 

 1913. He took this British scientist and Dr. Howard T. Karsner 

 of Cleveland to lunch and later " spent two hours showing Dr. 



^^ E. F. Smith, Recent cancer research, Amer. Naturalist 60: 247-249, May- June, 

 1926; also, Some newer aspects of cancer research, Science 61(1589) : 600, June 12, 

 1925. 



""^Zeit. f. Krehsf. 16: 51-58 with 2 pis. 



®* E. F. Smith, Twentieth century advances in cancer research, Jour. Radiology 

 4(9): 299, Sept. 1923. 



