DISCOVERY OF PROTEIN PRINCIPLE IN THERAPEUTICS 117 



cachexia were progressive, and the end was obviously at hand. 

 The life of the patient had undoubtedly been made more comfort- 

 able, and had almost certainly been prolonged; but the ultimate 

 result had not been what the friends of the patient had hoped 

 for, and what the physician had for a time allowed himself to 

 expect. 



There were exceptions to this, it is true. A few cases out of 

 the hundreds appeared to have gone to a clinical recovery that 

 seemed to give promise of permanency. But these exceptions, 

 notable in themselves, were few and far between. 



This, of course, was precisely the history of the various ante- 

 cedent biological measures in the treatment of cancer the experi- 

 ence that had led to the abandonment of most of these methods 

 after a brief term of use. But to me the experience seemed 

 neither unexpected nor disheartening. I had been careful to 

 point out in my statistical reports that these were only prelim- 

 inary and that the final story could not be told for months to 

 come. I had pointed out that what was being sought was a 

 scientific medicament and not a magician's wand. I had repu- 

 diated from the outset the suggestion that the particular vege- 

 table extract in question had any specific qualities whatsoever 

 that set it aside from any other extract containing non-toxic 

 proteins. 



And what was still more important as the sequel will show 

 I had conceived the idea that, if the active agent involved was 

 indeed, as I believed, a protein, as such, there could be nothing 

 more natural than the gradual immunization of the system against 

 the particular proteins employed, with the result that the cor- 

 puscular response would presently cease to be cumulative. This, 

 as it seems to me, would account for the observed fact that the 

 patient who had at first shown extraordinary response presently 

 reached a static condition, and then entered on a period of 

 decline. 



The fact that the use of excessive dosage, or the accidental 

 or intentional injection of the extract into a vein, with a re- 

 sultant anaphylactic shock, had been observed sometimes to bring 

 about a new period of favorable progress in a case that had 

 reached this static phase, appeared to me to confirm the view 

 just presented. 



The essential fact, as I conceived it, now established irre- 

 futably, was that the parenteral introduction of a protein could 

 bring about a response that would produce such clinical modi- 

 fications. The fact that the response was not indefinitely per- 

 sistent, and that the ultimate clinical results fell short of the 

 miraculous, seemed to me a detail. A very tragic detail, to be 

 sure, for the individual patient ; but by no means condemnatory 



