DISCOVERY OF PROTEIN PRINCIPLE IN THERAPEUTICS 113 



told that no one had any very clear notion as to how it op- 

 erated, but that it was known to contain chlorophyll, and that 

 its action was supposed to be due either to this substance or to 

 some unknown agent of the nature of a vitamine. It was not 

 until about six months later that I learned the method of prep- 

 aration of the extract; then the fact was revealed that it con- 

 tained vegetable proteins in solution. Long before this I had 

 freely expressed the opinion that there was nothing specific about 

 the particular vegetable compound used to make the extract, and 

 had predicted that it would be possible to make extracts from 

 numberless other vegetables that would be equally effective. 

 This prophecy was in part based on the supposition that chloro- 

 phyll was the active agent involved. 



But when I learned that the extract contained vegetable pro- 

 teins, a clear conception of its manner of action crystallized 

 instantly in my mind, along the lines of force, so to speak, of the 

 Proteomorphic theory. At once it seemed clear to me that we 

 had to do with a protein response; that the cohorts of leuco- 

 cytes and red corpuscles were stimulated into being and into 

 renewed activities to meet a protein invasion ; and that the ob- 

 served action on the cancer cells was only an incidental effect 

 due to the fact that these cells are themselves foreign proteins 

 and, therefore, fall within the range of activities of the cor- 

 puscles. The preliminary blood studies that were already under 

 way, the full details of which will be given presently, appeared 

 to justify the inference. The observed facts linked with the 

 Proteomorphic theory, in my mind at any rate, in a way abso- 

 lutely convincing. 



Immediately, and at a single sitting, I wrote the paper explain- 

 ing the action of the remedy in the light of the Proteomorphic 

 Theory, which was published in the New York Medical Journal 

 of October 2, 1915. 



I weigh my words very carefully, yet I speak entirely with- 

 out hesitation, when I express the conviction that a new era 

 in therapeutics was foreshadowed in that publication. 



In speaking thus, I do not mean to refer in particular to the 

 treatment of cancer. That, as I clearly conceived at the time, 

 is only an incident. The subject involved is much larger. I 

 stated this explicitly in the article in question, enunciating the 

 opinion that a principle of protein response had been (quite by 

 accident) invoked that would apply against all protein infections. 

 I expressly stated the opinion that, in the attempt to explain the 

 rationale of the action through which the vegetable proteins bring 

 about a beneficent increase in the armies of leucocytes and ery- 

 throcites, we "gain glimpses of an entirely new field of thera- 

 peutics and shall be enabled to give at least a proximal explana- 



