510 THE CHEMISTRY OF TUMORS 



cases of other diseases and 2.6 per cent, of normal persons showed 

 hemolytic activity of the serum. ^ Elsberg found that normal corpus- 

 cles injected subcutaneously into cancer patients are hemolyzed, but 

 Gorham and Lisser found this reaction positive in but 60 per cent, of 

 their cases, the subcutaneous hemolysis not corresponding at all to 

 the hemolytic activity of the patient's serum in the test tube. The 

 stomach contents in cancer of the stomach, when ulcerated, are hemo- 

 lytic (Grafe and Rohmer).^ The red corpuscles of cancer patients are 

 said to have usually a greater resistance to hemolysis by cobra venom 

 than normal corpuscles, but this is not characteristic, there being simi- 

 lar alterations in other diseases.^*' The reputed power of the serum 

 in cancer to protect corpuscles from hemolysis by oleic and lactic acid 

 could not be demonstrated by Sweek and Fleisher.^^ 



An extensive review of the literature and methods led Cohnreich^^ 

 to the conclusion that resistance of erj^throcytes to hypotonic solutions 

 and to poisons vary independently of one another. He has devised an 

 improved method for testing resistance to hypotonic solutions, which 

 seems to vary directly with the amount of stroma and PO4 content, 

 and finds that determinations of maximum and minimum resistance are 

 of little value, as *"hese concern only a small part of the corpuscles; 

 he therefore determines the "plurimum" resistance, involving most of 

 the corpuscles. The most significant results were obtained in cancer 

 of the alimentary tract, in which an increased resistance was always 

 demonstrable. Farmachidis'^ finds the cobra venom resistance more 

 specific for cancer than do most other investigators. 



(6) Metabolism in Cancer. — There are numerous observations 

 indicating that cancer cachexia is in no way different from the cachexia 

 of other conditions. The behavior of the nitrogen metabolism seems 

 to be quite the same as in tuberculosis and other wasting diseases. 

 There is the same excessive elimination of aromatic substances (phenol, ^* 

 indican) and oxyacids (Lewin,^^ BlumenthaP^), which Lewin con- 

 siders to arise from the abnormal metabolism of proteins, and not from 

 putrefactive decomposition in the tumor or in the intestines. In rats 

 with sarcoma, increased excretion of uric acid and creatin has been ob- 

 served. ^^ There is also the same excessive elimination of mineral 

 salts that is observed in pulmonary tuberculosis, and termed "demin- 



* Literature bv Gorham and Lisser, Amer. Jour. Med. Sci., 1912 (144), 103. 

 9 Deut. Arch.'klin. Med., 1908 (94), 239. 



•" Kraus, Ranzi and H. Ehrlich, Sitz. Ber. Akad. Wien., 1910 (119), 3; see also 

 Grunbaum, Jour. Path, and Bact., 1912 (17), 82. 



" Jour. Med. Res., 1913 (27), 383. 



" FoHa Hematol., 1913 (16), 307, full bibliography. 



" Gaz. degli Osped., 1915 (36), 689. 



^* Somewhat higher than average figures for phenol in the blood were found in 

 sarcoma cases by Theis and Benedict (.lour. Biol. Chcm., 1918 (36), 99). 



1^ Deut. med. Woch., 1905 (31), 218. 



i« Festsclir. f. Salkowski, Berlin, 1904. 



" Ordway, Jour. Med. Res., 1913 (23), 301. 



