508 THE CHEMISTRY OF TUMORS 



thetical antibodies, tliongh a distinct cytotoxic influence can be demon- 

 strated 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 in- 

 jected with extracts of their own tumors. Lewin ^ also fails to find 

 conclusive evidence of the demonstration of specific antibodies in 

 cancer, yet accepts the immunity which is produced by injections of a 

 virulent cancer material as an active immunity dependent upon cancer 

 antibodies. It may, however, depend on a stimulation of the local 

 cellular reactions that inhibit 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.^'^ 



V. Dungern ^ has claimed to secure positive complement fixation 

 reactions, partially specific for cancer and benign tumors, by using 

 alcoholic extracts of the tumors or acetone extracts of human ery- 

 throcytes as antigen, but he interprets these reactions as not due to 

 specific antibodies, but to abnormal products of metabolism. The 

 complement content of the blood is said to be slightly increased in 

 cancer ( Engel ) ,* but there is nothing characteristic about this. Ascoli 

 and Izar ** have applied the meiostagmin test (g, v.) and state that this 

 gives very positive results in determining the existence of cancer, their 

 work having been corroborated by many but not by all of those who 

 have repeated it.-'^ Burmeister ^'^ could obtain no reliable results with 

 the epiphanin reaction. 



Freund and Kaminer ^^ have found that the serum of cancer pa- 

 tients is unable to dissolve cancer cells, as normal serum does, and 

 even protects them against the lytic power of normal serum. The 

 lysis is ascribed to a non-nitrogenous fatty acid, while the protective 

 agent of cancer serum is said to be a "nucleo-globulin" which is in- 

 creased in the serum in cancer. They also find that cancer extracts 

 give a specific turbidity or precipitation with cancer serum, which 

 is attributed to a carbohydrate content of the extract. According 

 to Kraus and v. Graff ^- the serum of full term, pregnant women, 

 and normal umbilical cord serum, behave like serum from cancer 



5 Folia Serologica, 1911 (7), 1013: literature. 



saTvzzor, Jour. Cancer. Res., 1916 (1), 12.5. 



cWien klin. Wodi., 1909 (22), 989; Zeit. Imiminitiit., 1910 (4), 45.5. 



f.aSoe Weil, .Jour. Exp. Med., Oct., 1913. 



TMiincli. ined. Wocli., 1912 (59), 65, 1093 and 2854; also Rosenberg, Dent, iiied. 

 Woch., 1912 (38), 1225. 



sDeut. nied. Woch., 1910 (36), 986. Not corroborated I)V Ordwav and Kcllert, 

 Jour. :Med. Research, 1913 (28), 287. 



oMiinch. med. Woch., 1910 (57), 2129; Biocheni. Zeit., 1910 (29), 13. 



oaSee Rosenberg, Deut. med. Wocli., 1913 (39), 926; Wissung, Rerl. klin. Woch.. 

 1915 (52), 998.' 



10 See Burmeister, Jour. Inf. Dis., 1913 (12), 4.59; Bruiriremann, ^Slitt. (irenz. 

 Med. u. C'hir., 1913 (25), 877. 



11 Biochem. Zeit., 1912 (46), 470; Wicn. klin. Wo.Ii., 1911 (24), 1759; 1913 

 (26), 2108. 



i^Wien. klin. Wodi., 1911 (24), 191. 



