140 



Scientific Proceedings (59). 



85 (902) 



The action of radium on growing cells. 



By F. C. Wood and Frederick Prime. 



[From the Crocker Laboratory for Cancer Research* Columbia 



University.] 



If it is difficult to correlate the published results of the clinical 

 treatment of cancer with radium, it is still more difficult to corre- 

 late the findings in the biological study of radioactivity. My own 

 experiments on primary mouse tumors, shortly to be published, 

 show that it is impossible to cure primary carcinoma of mice by 

 the application of 155 mgm. of radium bromide, even when used 

 for long periods of time. Nevertheless, the tumors so treated 

 shrink to a fraction of their previous size. Thus, after forty-eight 

 hours' treatment of a tumor, about 15 mm. in diameter, with 30 

 mgm. of radium bromide, only a microscopic remnant could be 

 found, von Wassermann 1 says, however, that the direct applica- 

 tion of 55 mgm. of mesothorium for many days did not interfere 

 with the growth of a transplanted mouse carcinoma, and yet he 

 states that a small fragment of the same tumor irradiated for 

 three hours with the same amount of mesothorium could not be 

 successfully transplanted. Again, he says that carcinoma cells 

 suspended in Ringer's solution have their " genoceptors " de- 

 stroyed so that the cell cannot reproduce itself, though it is still 

 alive and its nutrireceptors are active after three to three and a 

 half hours. The method he uses to prove that the cells are still 

 living is to suspend them in methylene blue solution; if this de- 

 colorizes, he considers that the cells are alive. The assumption is 

 so questionable that it seems worth while to publish a few experi- 

 ments out of a large series made in the Crocker Laboratory as a 

 part of a general study of radium action. 



Russell and Bullock 2 have recently taken issue with Von 

 Wassermann and have drawn attention to some observations which 

 contradict his statements, citing the experiments of Russ and 



♦George Crocker Special Research Fund. 

 J Deutsch. med. Wchnschr., 1914, p. 524. 

 J Berl. klin. Wchnschr., 1914, p. 725. 



