112 THE PROTEOMORPHIC THEORY AND THE NEW MEDICINE 



the Polyclinic Hospital in New York. The clinical results, par- 

 ticularly in a case of cancer of the rectum and a case of hyper- 

 nephroma, struck me as spectacular and in the highest degree 

 thought-provocative. 



But I was impressed also with the observation that in these 

 cases and in various others there appeared to be a congested 

 condition in the region of the tumor masses, involving both 

 white corpuscles and red, that was at least inferentially asso- 

 ciated with the autolytic process. 



Meantime the action of the extract was not that of an escha- 

 rotic. This was fairly obvious even at the outset, when injec- 

 tion was made directly into the tumor masses; but it became 

 demonstrative when it was found a little later that the hypo- 

 dermic injection could be made into distant regions of the body 

 say, the upper arm with apparently the same results in 

 localized action on a tumor of the breast, the uteras, the stom- 

 ach, or other region. This seemed to imply a selective action as 

 between cancer cells and normal cells ; and the observations on 

 the blood appeared to justify the inference that the corpuscles 

 were the effective agents through which the selection came about. 



Such, at least, was my own inference, biased as I naturally was 

 by what may be called the Proteomorphic point of view. 



Coupled with the collateral observations outlined above, the 

 matter seemed to be of sufficient importance to merit very care- 

 ful investigation. I made such investigations in the offices of 

 the New York physicians who were applying the treatment, and 

 through correspondence with numerous others. I also visited a 

 physician in a neighboring city, who had twenty-five or thirty 

 cases under treatment, carefully inspecting the cases. In the 

 aggregate, the cases that came under my personal observation 

 in the half year following the first observations numbered about 

 three hundred. The reports from other physicians brought the 

 number to upward of a thousand. And the conclusion forced 

 upon me was that certain definite and tangible results attended 

 the administration of the extract. They were results closely sim- 

 ilar to those that had been attained by the use of various and 

 sundry of the biological extracts above referred to ; and sub- 

 stantially identical with those attained by the workers at the 

 Crocker Research Fund Institution with animal extracts, to 

 which fuller reference will be made in another connection. But 

 the method had merits over the antecedent ones in question in 

 that the extract used could be readily prepared, and lacked the 

 toxicity that characterized some of the others for example, 

 the bacterial extract known as Coley's fluid, the efficacy of 

 which, in some cases of sarcoma, appears to be beyond question. 



When the extract was first brought to my attention I was 



