The therapeutic value of the mixed toxins of the streptococcus of erysipelas and bacillus prodigiosus in the treatment of inoperable malignant tumors : with a report of one hundred and sixty cases / by William B. Coley.

  • Coley, William Bradley, 1862-1926.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The therapeutic value of the mixed toxins of the streptococcus of erysipelas and bacillus prodigiosus in the treatment of inoperable malignant tumors : with a report of one hundred and sixty cases / by William B. Coley. 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.

    31/34 (page 29)
    reported a case of cure of an epithelioma of the floor of the mouth. No micro- scopic examination was made, but the submaxillary glands were enlarged and the diagnosis was conflrmed by several prominent physicians, who advised operation, but the patient refused to have an operation performed. The treat- ment was begun January 10,1895, and lasted about three months. Dn Matagne also reports a second successful case of recurrent sarcoma of the neck, the size ] of an egg, that totally disappeared under three and one-half months’ treatment I with the mixed toxins. Six months later there was a slight return. A third case of recurrent sarcoma of the neck the size of a foetal head decreased two- thirds under three months’ treatment with the toxins. The patient then consulted a surgeon. The operation proved fatal. I Dr. Matagne used the toxins in three other cases of sarcoma with slight J effect, and also in eight cases of carcinoma with very little result. It is quite true that most of the successes reported by other observers are as yet too recent to be fairly classed as cures, and such is not my * object in presenting them. Whether they recur or not, they furnish the ji strongest possible evidence of the antagonistic and specific infiuence of I the toxins upon inoperable sarcoma, and, in connection with my own cases 1 that have passed the three-year limit, we have proof that such influence I’ may be curative. i It would be hardly possible to expect the profession at large to accept * without question or criticism such startling results as I have reported ; hence I have related with some detail the successful results of others who I have employed this method. ^ This series of upward of twenty cases of inoperable sarcoma, four of 1 which have remained well for more than two and one-half years, the ; diagnosis in all of which has been established beyond question, according to the accepted methods of diagnosis, I believe to be sufficient to demon- i strate that a real and positive step forward has been made in a field ; that, up to the present, has resisted every attempted advance of medical i; science. j I am conscious that there are men who will remain skeptical as to the I value of the toxins in spite of the evidence here presented. They either i fail to see any logical connection between the action of accidental ery- { sipelas and the toxins, or they even go so far as to deny that there are I any authentic cases of malignant tumors that were cured by accidental I erysipelas. The only explanation they have to offer for these results, I which cannot be questioned, is that in all of the successful cases there I must have been an error of diagnosis. i Such an explanation might be entitled to some consideration were I only a single case involved, but to propose it seriously as a satisfactory ; explanation of the result in twenty cases is, I believe, unworthy of any- one who claims to be guided by scientific principles. Much has been made of the spontaneous disappearance of tumors supposedly malignant. I have made a careful study of the reported cases of this kind, and have failed to find a single instance of a tumor disappearing spontaneously or after exploratory operation in which the diagnosis of sarcoma oi- carci- noma had been confirmed by microscopical examination.