YEASTS AND CANCER 



707 



FIG. 340. Cryptococcus tokishigei, in 

 the pus of an abscess, with phagocytosis. 

 (After Tokishiga.) 



5. Cryptococcus tokishigei. The disease known as "Japan farcy" is 

 caused by a similar parasite, Cryptococcus tokishigei (Tokishiga). 



6. Cryptococcus degenerans, isolated by 

 Roncali from several cases of malignant 

 growths, etc. 



SECTION IV. THE SACCHAROMYCES 

 AND CANCER. 



By inoculating a guinea-pig under the skin 

 with a species of Saccharomyces (S. neofor- 

 mans) which he found in the juice of 

 fermented fruits, Sanfelice produced a myxo- 

 matous tumour at the site of inoculation 

 which killed the animal within a month. 



This observation, coupled with his discovery of the Cryptococcus (Saccharo- 

 myces) lithogenes (vide ante) in the glands of an ox suffering from carcinoma 

 of the liver, gave a certain amount of impetus to a theory previously advanced 

 by Russell that malignant new growths are the result of an infection with 

 blastomycetic fungi. 



The theory is however now discarded. In the first place, it is very difficult 

 to explain the intra -cellular position of a yeast in an epithelial cell (Borrel) ; 

 secondly, it would seem to be proved that a culture of a yeast has never been 

 obtained by sowing a non-ulcerated malignant growth (Curtis) ; thirdly, the 

 inoculation of blastomycetic fungi into the lower animals has never given 

 rise to growths histologically comparable to sarcomata or carcinomata ; and 

 finally the serum of persons suffering from malignant growths is totally devoid 

 of agglutinating properties for the yeasts found in tumours by Sanfelice, 

 Curtis and others (Brouha). 



[A. S. Grunbaum fed several mice on a yeast isolated from a mammary 

 cancer. The majority of the animals were unaffected but two which died 

 43 and 46 days respectively after being fed showed nodules in the lungs, 

 bronchial glands and intestines. While the cell proliferation observed in 

 these nodules appeared to be quite distinct from that seen in ordinary inflam- 

 mation it is not suggested that anything in the nature of a neoplasm was 

 produced. " So far as these experiments go they neither support nor weaken 

 any parasitic hypothesis concerning the aetiology of new growths, which 

 hypothesis indeed, if no specific parasite be assigned as the cause, is not an 

 unreasonable or an unlikely supposition."] 



