DISCOVERY OF PROTEIN PRINCIPLE IN THERAPEUTICS 119 



July, 1916. They were tested side by side with extracts made 

 from the conglomerate group of herbs originally employed, or 

 from this powder with part of the original constituents elim- 

 inated. Comparative tests were continued for a period of six 

 months, after which the original extract was entirely aban- 

 doned, the uncomplicated protein solutions made from alfalfa seed, 

 alfalfa meal, rape seed, millet seed, hemp seed, and from egg 

 albumin and milk albumin, used singly or in combination, hav- 

 ing been demonstrated to produce the same clinical and blood 

 responses, and bearing about the same relation to the original 

 clumsy formula that a modern preparation of digitalis bears 

 to the shot gun formula of the old woman who first used an 

 infusion of foxglove combined with sundry inert herbs. 



In a word, the validity of my early contention that .the re- 

 sponse was essentially a protein response was abundantly demon- 

 strated. 



Moreover, my expectation that a new protein would produce 

 a new response, thus supplying means to overcome the stasis 

 accompanying immunization to the first protein employed, was 

 also justified in the most gratifying manner. Cases that had 

 become static after having undergone an original period of prog- 

 ress, took on a new period of favorable progress on the admin- 

 istration of the new proteins. The very first patient to whom 

 alfalfa protein was administered showed the influence of the 

 new protein in a very striking way. This was a case of meta- 

 static recurrence after excision of the cancer of the breast. 

 The neoplasm had regressed under early treatment, but had 

 become static, with a seeming tendency to take on new growth. 

 It at once regressed when the alfalfa protein was administered, 

 and presently nothing remained but a pea-sized nodule just under 

 the skin, which was excised with local anesthesia. The patient 

 went on to seemingly complete recovery, and at the present 

 writing, eighteen months after the disappearance of all symp- 

 toms or appearances of abnormality, she is in robust condition 

 and seemingly in complete health. 



THEORY TESTED BY PROPHECY 



It has been said that the final test of the truth of a theory is 

 that its application shall enable one to prophesy. It is with 

 peculiar satisfaction, then, that I make this succinct record of 

 prophecies fulfilled. Given a therapeutic agent extracted by an 

 unknown process from a conglomerate mixture of drugs, and 

 showing clinical response altogether inexplicable by any known 

 principle of therapeutics ; I predicated the response guided by 

 the Proteomorphic Theory as due to no ordinary pharmaceu- 



