250 THE PROTEAL TREATMENT OF CANCER 



The chill and rise of temperature that mark the characteristic 

 reaction, and serve as guides to the clinician, probably mark 

 the period when the cumulative action of the leucocytes has 

 taxed the blood with more polypeptid by-products than the red 

 cells can for the moment handle, so that the ranks of the latter 

 have been momentarily depleted, and the chill gives warning 

 that the system is feeling the effects of toxicity. But the rise of 

 temperature is compensatory, since this in itself stimulates the 

 activity of the cytogenic apparatus, so that in a short time there 

 are usually enough of the corpuscular defenders present to take 

 care of the obnoxious protein products. 



If compensation does not take place quickly, the delay serves 

 as a warning to the clinician that he should let a longer interval 

 elapse before giving the next dose, or administer the remedy in 

 smaller doses. 



If the foregoing reasoning is accepted, it is clear that we can 

 form a tolerably vivid mental picture of the processes through 

 which the regression of the malignant tumor is brought about 

 under the influence of the vegetable protein antigens. The ob- 

 served phenomenon of the cessation of pain, which is one of the 

 most uniform and gratifying immediate results, is explicable as 

 due to the softening and disintegration of the peripheral cancer 

 cells that have encroached upon the nerve fibrils. The time re- 

 quired for the pain-annulling effects to make themselves manifest 

 would appear to depend upon the exact site of the cancer, and 

 the extent to which its cells have involved the nerves. As the 

 cancer tissue steadily regresses, it is withdrawn more and more 

 from interference with the nerves, and the cessation of pain is 

 lasting. 



There is very commonly experienced a sensation of gnawing 

 or digging at the site of the tumor, which is not exactly agreeable, 

 but which the patient cheerfully tolerates because he regards it, 

 doubtless quite correctly, as an evidence that salutary changes 

 are taking place within the tissues of the neoplasm. 



The cessation of odor in superficial ulcerative neoplasms or 

 in the discharge from uterine or other masses, is readily under- 

 stood, according to the present thesis, as due to the activities of 

 the hitherto depleted but now adequate army of red blood 

 corpuscles. The decomposition products that produce the bad 

 odor are precisely of the character of the protein products that, 

 according to hypothesis, the red blood corpuscles deal with 

 habitually. The odor was, therefore, directly due to the in- 

 adequacy of the supply of red blood corpuscles, and it disappears 

 almost as a matter of course when this defect is fully compensated. 



