INTRODUCTION 31
things
are in conformity with the enzyme treatment of cancer.
Moreover,
it is not suggested in this book that the injection of 60,000 genuine tryptic
units and 120,000 amylolytic units in the space of four months will cause any
and every malignant tumour to shell out or encapsulate. At times a cancer may
shell out on less, as happened. for example, in the Naples case of inoperable
cancer of the tongue. In others, again, a much more vigorous treatment, for all
I know, may be needed. Thus, the case in which, to my knowledge, the greatest
number of tryptic units was ever injected in a given time was one of multiple
sarcoma. In this case, in eight weeks, according to my calculations, 84,000
tryptic units, and only about 16,800 amylolytic units, of the strongest
injections then on sale, were given. Several of the tumours did, indeed,
disappear, but, so far as I am aware, the patient was not cured of sarcoma.
Attention may be directed to the comparatively small amount of amylopsin
employed, and it is my suspicion that the case failed from toxaemia, due to
this lack of amylopsin. This case was treated in the early months of 1907, and
at that time the very great importance of large injections of amylopsin had not
been recognized. The trypsin injection used in this case of multiple sarcoma
contained 500 tryptic and 100 amylolytic units per cubic centimetre or ampoule.
Owing to these facts, the course of treatment, doses, etc., cannot be compared
with that adopted by Captain Lambelle with such conspicuous success. At all
events, genuine trypsin was injected, and Dr. H. 0. S. did not condemn the
treatment.
If
a malignant tumour possess an enzyme (ferment) totally different from that
(trypsin) widely present, according to Vernon, in traces in normal tissues,
surely that is a fact of supreme significance and import. Since