128 
Scientific Proceedings (44). 
glycosuria and acidosis, and the rapidity with which they succumb 
to diabetes, renders such an explanation probable. It is conceiv- 
able also that during the period of growth the demand for carbo- 
hydrates for the histogenetic processes may be so great that the 
cells are left in partial carbohydrate hunger, and are unable to 
perform the "endo-catabolic" activities as perfectly as in later life. 
Without question the metabolism of creatine is intimately asso- 
ciated with carbohydrate metabolism. 
78 (603) 
The rate of tumor growth in underfed hosts. 
By PEYTON ROUS. 
[From the Laboratories of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical 
Research, New York.] 
Workers with transmissible neoplasms have had frequent occa- 
sion to observe that sick or emaciated animals are relatively 
resistant as hosts for implanted tumor. It does not develop in 
them with the same readiness as in healthy individuals. A kindred 
phenomenon has been noted by Moreschi 1 in studying the relation 
of nutrition to tumor growth. He found that in mice losing 
weight on a low diet an engrafted sarcoma survived with less 
frequency and grew more slowly than in the well-fed controls. 
Indeed these controls died of their tumor sooner than did the 
fasting animals. 
This being so might it not be possible to delay by food-restric- 
tion the course of inoperable tumors? And might not the develop- 
ment of metastasis after excision of a primary growth be hindered 
by the same means? In an attempt to answer these questions 
the author has performed a series of experiments with the Flexner- 
Jobling adeno-carcinoma of the rat. This neoplasm in its invasive 
spread and tendency to metastasize has a striking likeness to some 
of the cancers of human beings. 
A bread compounded of oatmeal, rye-flour, corn-meal, milk 
and sugar, was baked in large quantity, dried, ground, and, with 
sufHcient milk t o moisten it, was used as the sole food of the 
1 C. Moreschi, Zeitschr.f. Immunitdtsforsch., 1909, VI., 651. 
