24 THE ENZYME TREATMENT OF CANCER
others
d-compounds. The like is true of the ferments, which certain of the albumins
give rise to as modifications of themselves. Trypsin is like the albumin from
which it is derived laevo-rotatory ;* it acts to some extent upon dead
l-albumins, but on living d-albumins. Amylopsin is also laevo-rotatory; it
converts d-starches into d-sugars, among other things, but not l-ones, and thus
not the l-glycogen or animal starch of cancer. It acts upon and pulls down
certain d-compounds of cancer. On the other hand, the proteolytic or
albumin-attacking ferment of cancer is a dextro-rotatory body, like the
(dextro-rotatory) albumin of cancer, from which it is derived. It attacks and
pulls down, not the living dextro-rotatory albumins of cancer, but the living
laevorotatory albumins of the human body.
The
conception I have formed of one action of amylopsin in the enzyme treatment of
cancer is briefly as follows Acting upon the living d-albumins of cancer,
trypsin pulls them down in the chemical scale a certain distance, but not into
simple harmless products. On the contrary, some of the products of its action
are very poisonous, and to all, appearance these are dextro-rotatory, like
cancer albumin. As compounds of this rotation they can be acted upon and
reduced to simple harmless compounds by the ferment amylopsin, owing to its
configuration, its laevo-rotatory character. **
* For an opportunity
of determining these facts concerning the rotations of trypsin and amylopsin I
am indebted to Mr. P. W. Squire,
London. At my request he kindly sent me freshly prepared and strong solutions
of both trypsin and amylopsin, as well as a bottle of the “ menstruum “ in
which they were dissolved. in my polarimeter the latter showed no rotation at
all, while both trypsin and amylopsin were strongly laevo-rotatory. It was not
my purpose to calculate their “specific rotations.”
** The following natural question was
recently put to the writer by a surgeon keenly interested in these matters
“ If (cont on p25)