244 THE PROTEAL TREATMENT OF CANCER 



Viewing such results in retrospect, and recalling that a positive 

 statement is made: "All of the patients treated, 49 in number, 

 have been declared surgically inoperable and the growth positively 

 malignant, both clinically and microscopically," it seems almost 

 incredible that the record of such results, achieved under the 

 auspices of a great university and published with the authentica- 

 tion of an important bureau for cancer research, should have 

 aroused no interest on the part of other workers, and have led 

 to no practical result looking toward the solution of the cancer 

 problem. And I think we must feel that the barrenness of the 

 effort was largely due to the unfortunate hypothesis with which 

 the striking results were linked in the minds of the experimenters 

 and in the minds of the readers of their report. 



Here were results attained with an alleged "X" substance of 

 mysterious origin, of unknown composition, a subtsance that no 

 one knew how to duplicate the private property, as it were, of 

 the physician who had discovered it. Under the circumstances, 

 other searchers in the cancer field probably felt that they could 

 do nothing except await further reports from the alleged dis- 

 coverer himself; and as these reports were not forthcoming, 

 progress in that direction was at an end. It seems regrettable 

 that some one did not raise the query as to whether the alleged 

 mystery of the "X" substance were not mythical, and, by making 

 similar experiments with thymus extract prepared in a non- 

 mysterious way, following these up with other extracts, carry the 

 experiment forward a step farther along the lines of conquest of 

 cancer. 



In point of fact, k appears that at least one experimenter did 

 do this, although whether he knew of the work of the "X" sub- 

 stance experimenters or not I cannot say. I refer to Klinger, 

 the Swiss physician whose work with animal autolysates was 

 referred to in an earlier part of this volume. He, in effect, did 

 precisely what has just been suggested. He tested animal extracts 

 of no mysterious character, using them hypodermically quite as 

 the 'Columbia University experimenters had used the "X" sub- 

 stance. Like them he produced striking results in the early stage 

 of treatment of cases of inoperable cancer. Like them he saw 

 that it was necessary to find other substances which "will carry 

 the improvement to a successful issue." But, unlike them, he did 

 not feel that "the direction of search for such a substance or for 

 an explanation of the problem was quite unknown." In some 

 way he divined that it might be worth while to test other animal 

 extracts after the efficiency of the first one had been exhausted. 

 In so doing he found that a new term of improvement followed. 

 Thus he was one stage nearer the final goal. 



And, as the reader is aware, at the same time that this ex- 



