514 THE CHEMISTRY OF TUMORS 



(8) Immunity Reactions in Cancer. — The fact that a certain degree 

 of specific immunity can be developed against normal tissue cells (see 

 Cytotoxins, Chap, x), has encouraged study of the possibility of se- 

 curing immune antibodies which might be specific for cancer, and has 

 led to much research on this subject, ^^ with results as yet of httle 

 value. There is no doubt that the bodj^ has distinct powers to 

 inhibit to a greater or less degree the growth of tumors, and to 

 destroy many of the cells which escape from cancers into the lymph 

 and blood, ^2 while in experimental animals inoculated tumors are 

 in most instances unable to grow, and they may, after growth has 

 once begun, recede or even disappear. Furthermore, animals may 

 be made immune to tumors to which they would otherwise be susceptible . 

 Many schemes of immunization of patients by injection of extracts 

 or autolysates made from their own tumors, or similar tumors of others, 

 have been tried, ^^ but in the hands of competent and critical observers 

 the results seem to have been practically negative. ^^ It is not always 

 kept in mind that inoculated cancers in rats and mice represent an 

 artificial condition behaving very differently from spontaneous tumors. 



There is no lack of evidence that cancers do produce, in greater or 

 less amounts, various antibodies of some degree of specificit}' for can- 

 cer, which must be interpreted as evidence that cancer proteins are in 

 some respects different from the normal proteins of the host; however, 

 the amount and specificity of these antiboches seem to be low," 

 and, in many observations, they have failed to be demonstrated. In- 

 deed, Coca in his review states unqualifiedlj^, "The usual biological 

 tests of complement deviation and specific precipitation fail to show 

 the hypothetical antibodies, though a distinct cytotoxic influence can 

 be demonstrated in the plasma of animals of foreign species that have 

 been actively immunized against a tumor." His own experiments 

 failed to demonstrate specific complement-fixation antibodies in 

 patients injected with extracts of their own tumors. Lewin^'^ also 

 fails to find conclusive evidence of the demonstration of specific anti- 

 bodies in cancer, yet accepts the immunity which is produced by in- 

 jections of virulent cancer material as an active immunity dependent 

 upon cancer antibodies. It may, however, depend on a stimulation 

 of the local cellular reactions that inhibits cancer growth. ^^ Pfeiffer^'* 

 claims to find specific anaphylactic antibodies in the blood of cancer 

 patients, but this has not been confirmed by several other observers. ^'■' 



" Literature by Coca, Zeit. Immunitat., 1912 (13), 525; Kraus et al., Wien 

 klin. Woch., 1911 (24), 1003. 



" Reviewed by Wells, Jour. Amer. Med. Assoc, 1909 (52), 1731. 



" Review by Fichera, Jour. Cancer Res., 1918 (3), 303. 



"See Blumenthal, Zeit. Krebsforsch., 1914 (14), 491; Bauer, Latzel and 

 Wessely, Zeit. klin. Med., 1915 (81), 420. 



" See Morgenroth and Bieling, Biochem. Zeit., 1915 (68), 85. 



^« Folia Serologica, 1911 (7), 1013; literature. 



" Tyzzer, Jour. Cancer. Res., 1910 (1), 125. 



" Wien klin. Woch., 1909 (22), 989; Zeit. Immunitiit., 1910 (4), 455. 



" See Weil, Jour. Exp. Med., Oct., 1913, (18), 390. 



