The immunity reaction to cancer / by E.F. Bashford.

  • Bashford, E. F. (Ernest Francis), 1873-
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The immunity reaction to cancer / by E.F. Bashford. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    been visualized : (1) These reactions were obtained by the introduction of tissues of one species into a strange species, and (2) they were demon¬ strated in vitro. It is certainly a startling fact that animals, not only nearly related, but also actually living on the same food, even on the pasture of the same field, build up living protein recognizable zoologi¬ cally and to the unaided eye—e.g., as horse, cow, goat, sheep, hare, rabbit, and guinea-pig—and as dead protein distinguishable in the test- tube, in consequence of the specific serum reaction the protein substance of any one species elicits when introduced into the body of any other— e.g., when the blood of the hare is introduced into the rabbit, or vice versa. It is quite easy to beg the questions raised by the fundamental biological fact of proteins so different being built up from the same raw food-stuffs, by rejoining: “ Of course, the starting point has not been the food, but the already living protein molecule—Jacques Loeb’s auto- catalysator—provided by the pre-existent cows or rabbits, &c.” Whether the food is broken down into the same elements in the digestive canal of all the above-mentioned herbivora or not, the proteins resulting from the raw food-stuffs are so very different as those of the cow and rabbit, or so similar and still different as those of the mouse and rat. The preceding considerations mark obviously a big advance in knowledge gained since the days when surgeons attempted to graft the skin of rabbits or kittens on to human beings, or transfused the blood of the sheep into human patients. As regards cancer, they show how irrational was the attempt to transfer it from one species to another, except on the assumption of the presence of a cancer parasite of the existence of which experiment has yielded no positive evidence. In general, the more remote the relationship of the species whose tissues or fluids are employed to elicit these in vitro reactions, the more easily are they demonstrated. The animal immunized against strange blood does not produce a haemolysin acting on the red cells of its own species, and when a haemolytic immune-serum is not strictly specific— i.e., acts on the blood of more than one species—its action can be simplified, as regards any particular species, by employing that species to yield the haemolytic immune-serum. Whenever it has been attempted to elicit a corresponding reaction in vitro after introducing the blood of one individual into another of the same species, dubious or completely negative results have followed, with the single exception of a series of experiments performed on goats ; the feebleness of the reaction (isolysin) demonstrated as compared with that obtainable with strange species (heterolysin) made, at the time when these experiments were