On some resemblances of crown-gall to human cancer / Erwin F. Smith.

  • Erwin Frink Smith
Date:
[1912]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: On some resemblances of crown-gall to human cancer / Erwin F. Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Borrel, of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and Dr. Reese, working in the cancer lab- oratory at Buffalo. These plant neoplasms contain both small- celled and large-celled parenchyma and a variety of other tissues, e. g., vessels and fibers. Cell division is sometimes so rapid that the cell wall can not keep pace. (Slides shown.) Frequently two and some- times more nuclei are present in a cell. A portion at least of the cell divisions are by mitosis; but not all, it would seem. Some queer things take place in the cells. We are now studying the mechanism of cell-division in these tumors and are not ready to report. To conclude, suppose we had in human cancer as its cause a microorganism multi- plying in small numbers within the cell, having a definite action on cell nuclei, readily inhibited by its own by-products, losing virulence easily, passing quickly over into involution forms which are diffi- cult to stain, and which are so paralyzed that only a very small portion will grow at all, except from the very youngest cells, and these only after a considerable period of time has elapsed, and further suppose that for their growth some very special technic of isolation, or some peculiar kind of culture media were necessary, then we should have precisely the same difficult conditions of isolation and determination as have confronted us in case of this simi- lar overgrowth of plants, and ample ex- planation of why expert animal patholo- gists have been unable to see the parasite in their sections, and unable to cultivate it on their culture media, and consequently, have very generally reached the conclu- sion that it does not exist. Granted the existence of such an organism, and we have a ready explanation for the growth of the cancer cell in defiance of the physio- logical needs of the organism. The hitherto inexplicable occasional change in the nature of the cell-growth of tumors, e. g., from epithelial to carcinomatous and from carcinomatous to sarcomatous also finds its explanation in the presence of a sensitive microorganism growing usually in the kind of cell originally infected but capable under certain circumstances of in- vading other types of cells. Erwin F. Smith U. 8. Department of Agriculture [The illustrations accompanying this address will be reproduced at an early date in a bulletin to be published by the U. S. Department of Agri- culture.]