The latest phase of the trypsin treatment of cancer / [J.A. Shaw-Mackenzie].

  • Shaw-Mackenzie, John A. (John Alexander), 1857-1933.
Date:
[1907]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The latest phase of the trypsin treatment of cancer / [J.A. Shaw-Mackenzie]. 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.

    2/4 (page 2)
    critical period preparations . . . and saw at once that I had neglected to lay stress as a character of the critical period on the commencing functional activities of the pancreas gland. So the problem was solved so far. The other thing is a later story. At once I saw thefe must be an antithesis of ferments, but was not aware whether any ferment had been described in the cancers. . . . January 18th, 1905. . . . Then it was you might have heard my heart thump. All was exactly as I had foreseen. . . .’ This letter was not sent for publication, but I have taken the liberty of putting it on record for its personal and general interest. ” It was on December 8th, 1904, as published by me in the Lancet, February nth, 1905, I commenced in- vestigations into the action of pancreatic and other ferments on glycogen. The considerations which led me to this were known to many, and published in a pamphlet of mine in October, 1904, in the British Medical Journal, January 7th, 1905, and the Lancet, January 14th, 1905; but I will here take the liberty of quoting from a letter of Dr. Beard to myself dated December 7th, 1905:—“When you get this letter on December 8th, it is a year exactly since you and I. independently arrived at the trypsin idea. . . The strenuousness of the efforts displayed by Dr. Saleeby in the lay Press, no less than in his book on behalf of the claim of another, must clearly demon- strate to any impartial person the weakness of his cause. If anything more was required it is the attempt to submit my work to destructive criticism. It is re- peatedly reiterated that trypsin has no action on gly- cogen. “There is no ferment,” he says, “which affects both protcids and carbohydrates, such as glycogen.” This is simply begging the question. Observers of old regarded glycogen as starch in proteid combination, and the purest glycogen obtainable still contains nitrogen. Moreover, the action of the proteolytic fer- ment rather than the amylolytic was and is supported by the fact recently and independently testified to that glycogen exists in the living tissues as proteid-glycogen. Dr. Saleeby mentions Dr. Odier’s work. He does not mention that in growths treated with a mixture of pancreas, liver and muscle extracts, coincident with atrophy of cells, histological examination has shown them to be deprived of glycogen. Drs. Saleeby and Beard attribute any action on glycogen to the leuco- cytes, forgetful that the digestive properties of these are attributed to a proteolytic ferment apparently iden-