CANCER

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 18 July 1925, Page 7

CANCER

DR. GYE’S DISCOVERIES QUEUE \WAITS PUBLICATION OF LANCET I.MPORTAN'I ADVANCE MADE SLG XIFIC ANT COMM ENTS (By Electric Telegraph. Copyright.) (jkiA**’ x» Jfc X -iC. Cable Audocititioii.) LONDON. July 10 It was a new experience to-night to sec a small queue awaiting the issue et the Laneet, in which papers bv Or Ove and Mr Barnard, descriptive ot the cancer experiments, are published With photographs taken with Mr Bui nut' •? special apparatus. The, Lancet devotes nine pages to >r Gve's elaborate report, which if liberally illustrated by charts and tables. ... The whole report is couched m hig.ilv technical language, which is largely i.nsmitable for cabling R shows that it (svc began? the actual tests in June .CEO. in his conclusions Dr Oye shows two rat. tumours, one mouse carcinoma ami one carcinoma from the human breast. All provided a factor which can replace the virus of the I’evtouroitf's tumour in the genesis ot a chicken sarcoma. Dt. live states that a common factor of these four tumours is certainly a virus.

The production of tumours with remote subcultures, remains to lie done. Further, it has been shown that. the virus alone is? unable to bring out maligi.art transformation ot the eelk An adjuvant which 1 call a specific fnctoi. is'fortunately abundantly proved m chicken sarcoma. '1 hose researches led mi? to look upon cancer, using the term in the widest sense, as a specific disease, caused bv a virus or group of viruses. Flic virus alone ur.dcr experimental conditions is ineffective. A seen ml specific factor obtained from tumour extracts, ruptures cell defences and enables the virus to infect under natural condit'ions. Continued iiTitalion of the tissue sets up a state under which infection can occur.

The connection between the specific factor of the tumour and an irritant remains to lie investigated. Some of the 'Known relatively unimportant irritants include coal tar and paraffin oils, Ihe virus probably lives and multiplies in the cell provoking it. to continued multiplication. Methods of our experiment® and their obvious extension give means of classifying the viruses, of investigating the nature of the specific factor and of testing suspected irritants, such as preservative foods, which may play a. role in the genesis of the tumour. Dr Gye ami Air Barnard jointly eontiibute a note saying—" Our belief that small bodies seen and photographed are virus, depends partly upon the fact that, tile control of inoculated tubes of the medium have been invariably blank and partly upon tho correspondence between the microscopical findings and the results of experiments upon animals. This correspondence has been so close that although the final proof has not been attained. we are convinced that our conclusions are sound. By final proof we mean the cultivation, of virus from a. single colony or, if possible, from a uingle spheroid and the production r.l tumour from the culture thus obtained. This work will he attempted when circtmi-:? 1 aiices permit. Tim Lancet, in a three and a-half page editorial pays a high tribute to Dr Gye and Mr Barnard. If .also quotes Dr (lye's fix fundamental eoiielusi.ons cabled on Tttesdav. It proceed® to- say— “Even in the light of Dr Gve’s work, tho presence of a single organism by itself cannot account for the. fundamental features of cancer. The position can ho stated more generally, that cancer cannot, be explained by postulating an entirely extrinsic origin. .Why then, do we accept Dr Gve's observations as? a solution of the central problem of cancer? The editorial traverses the history of cancer research, pointing out the persistent contention that the mouse and human cancer are quite different. It draws attention to Poytonrous’s expert', meats with fowl? and mice and his retirement from the field of research, because lie was baffled by (he question as to why the virus reproduced the biological individuality of each tumour. Dr Gye’s work shows there are both extrinsic and .intrinsic factors concerned in the aetiology of cancer. 11 is work offers n satisfying solution to the difficulties arising in earlier research. He has succeeded in producing a sarcoma with viius obtained from a carcinoma. the reverse of the results has not been obtained, hut they have never been observed to occur simultaneously in experimental propagation of sacromafa. Dr. Gve’s work is more than a solution of tlte central problem of cancer. He has evolved the technique for cultivating uilramiernscopie viruses l and method by itself is non-pa thogonie and requires an accessory snb.dance to produce the specific disease. It. may prove, ol the greatest importance in further study til the d Lea sc duo to the viruses.

The. editorial cnncludcs: —“All _ this work ha- cleared the way for rapid advance in the investigation into cancer, along entirely new. but clearly defined lines. A licet of new questions has arisen. We have no doubt, that by answering them, the attack on the cancer problem, which hitherto has baffled medical science, will he brought to a successful conclusion, hut there is a- tar wider outlook than this. The new technical methods now made available will he applicable to research along the whole of an enormous front. Measles 1 , smallpox, foot and month disease a.ttd dogs’ distemper may yield their secrets to workers armed with these, new weapnivsi. LONDON, July 17 The Daily Chronicle's scientific corros I >oi tel or 1 1 says:—Mr Barnard’s difficulty was to find a source of light whoreot the. wave length wa:s sufficiently short lo reveal the particles which were in visible because tlicv were shorter than the wave length affecting the. eye. Mr Barnard found the green line in the spectrum cl mercury best suited for the purpose, lie uses quai ls of mercury and a vapour lamp as a source of illumination. When the par-tides are found with this light, tiro v are photographed with ultra \ inlet rays, which have a wave length half that of the green mercury light and therefore disclose detail® invisible in the latter. Ultra violet light- is unable to pa-‘i glass, so all the lenses are made of quart/, The Morning Post says it follow® that future efforts towards prevention and cure of cancer must take a two fold road. The aetiology of the virus must he further examined. If it can he eliminated by do .t met ion or if the means whereby it reaches the affected cell can lie destroyed, there can he. r,o cancer. The. other line of research must he directed towards the elimination of the intrinsic factor —the ccdl produced chemical sir biota nee- wherewith the virus associates it pelf. It obvious that in either direction, all ini men. amount of ground has ft ill to be ce- "'ed l iefi» re a cure can he in sigld. The Daily Telegraph says that lo he -tire of flic cause i f cancer is peniicr or

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later to he sure of a cure. It will be realised that a wide field of investigation has opened. The connection of cancer with chronic irritation of the parts affected has long been suspected and irri lards are already regarded with suspicion. It will be toted afresh in. the light, of n new thcorv that "the virus by itself is non pathogenic and require? an accessory substance to produce a specific disease." 1 lie Morning Post say- the deciding • actor is what. Dr Gye calls? (he extrinsic or chemical factor, which must he present in the cell before ihe virus? can attack that cell.