TREATMENT OF CANCER.

Woodville Examiner, Volume XXII, Issue 3872, 11 May 1906, Page 4 (Supplement)

TREATMENT OF CANCER.

The efficacy of the treatment of oan'cc'l'. inoculations of trypsin, the possibilities of which were first foreshadowed 'by the “Daily Mail,” has just received striking confirmation from a scr- ■-< i of experiments conducted in the re{,va-. „h laocratci'y cf Edinburgh Universunder a grant from the Carnegie lm,t.

Among seven or eight cancerous mice two wore for the purposes of experiment injected with a trysp'in solution. After twenty-two days from the date of the experiment the “control” (i.e., uninoculated mouse) died of cancer. The tumour was found to be as largo as the last joint of a man’s thumb. One of the n.'-cc inoculated with try spin had died, apparently from some injury caused, by an accident in its cage, after ten days under observation, when the tumour was a ready found to be in “an advanced state of degeneration.” On the twenty-second day, when the "control” mouse died of disease, the" tumour of cancerous growth of the ether “try,spin mouse” was found to be only as big as a. lentil—“an apology for a tumour.” The growth was “in an ■advanced state of degeneration, shrinking away to nothingness, and quite harmless.”

’Mlic distinguished scientist’s report concludes that “its ‘cure’ from cancer was not far distant, and the microscopical examination confirmed this opinion. Even without further treatment the tumour would in all probability have boon absorbed shortly or its remains cast out.”

From mice to men may to the lay mind seem a long step, but the theory those experiments corroborate is a verv striking one, and makes them of sufficient significance to have caused something of a sensation in the scientific ■world.

“It would bo premature, of course, at present, on the strength of an isolated laboratory experiment, to speak of trypsin as a ‘cure’ for cancer in the case of human beings,” said a physician recently. “We do riot know at present, for example, whether the human body would be able bo absorb the injection of sufficient doses of trypsin to counteract the maligin of advanced cancer. “ Trypsin, it must he remembered, is a digestive ferment. That means if injected into a muscle, it would cat the tissues ■away and set up an abcess.