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in an industry where, as Labor Commissioner Neill reported, it was necessary for the father and mother and three or more grown sons and daughters to work in the mills and pool their pay to live in even moderate comfort. In Paterson the strike was caused by at least a seeming doubling of work without increase in pay. It is beyond question that manufacturers can go a long way to prevent the activities of the I. W. W. by such work as the survey that was conducted by the United States Steel Corporation. If the mill owners in every manufacturing community were to make a private survey of living conditions and set themselves seriously about the business of making the mill workers happy and satisfied, they would find it a good investment. The largest obstacle in the way of such a movement is absentee ownership. Some of the largest stockholders in the Paterson mills are Japanese who live in Japan. Not a single large stockholder

in any of the Lawrence textile mills lives in Lawrence. in Lawrence. This condition is true of mill-ownership in general. The stockholders know little or nothing about conditions, and the active management is concerned only with immediate results.

Now a different attitude is being forced on mill-owners. They find it necessary to look ahead and to see what is coming. They are beginning to realize that contented workers who receive a living wage do not lend a ready ear to agitation. The I. W. W. has never yet been able to get their attention. It tried to conduct a strike among the textile workers of New Bedford, but it failed because the workers were not desperate. They worked hard and for small pay, but they did not feel that they were being treated unjustly and they were not ready for revolution. They had something to lose. The I. W. W. is an ability to organize discontent; where there is no serious discontent it cannot operate.

NEW LIGHT ON CANCER

THE BELIEF OF SCIENCE IN THE ULTIMATE CONQUEST OF THE DISEASE IN SPITE OF
THE DISAPPOINTMENTS OF SEVERAL RECENT "CURES"-MANY SUBSTANCES
THAT PRODUCE TEMPORARY RESULTS AND SO AROUSE FALSE HOPES-
THE LATEST INVESTIGATIONS OF THE CAUSE OF CANCER

T

BY

JAMES MIDDLETON

HREE years ago Dr. Eugene Hodenpyl, at that time pathologist in the Roosevelt Hospital, New York City, created a medical sensation by discovering what was apparently a cure for cancer. A woman who had suffered for many years from malignant tumors of the most terrible virulence came under his observation. The disease, which had originally developed in the mammary gland, had "metastasized," that is, had become general throughout the system so that, in addiso that, in addition to the original cancer, secondary growths had appeared upon the neck and upon the liver, which had increased so in size that it filled practically the entire

abdominal cavity. Several radical operations had failed to check even slightly the progress of the disease, and the patient, the wife of a prominent New York physician, had been condemned to an early death.

And now, after the surgeons and specialists had abandoned this case, the strangest things began to happen. The attending nurses at first observed a change in the appearance of the tumors. They could hardly trust the evidence of their own senses, but the miraculous fact soon became undeniable; the growths were becoming smaller day by day. In a few months the original cancer on the breast entirely disappeared; the secondary growth in the neck gave place to clear, smooth,

normal skin; the diseased liver resumed its natural size. In connection with the disappearance of the cancers, however, other pathological conditions appeared. Another disease, popularly known as "dropsy," developed. The entire peritoneal cavity several times filled with fluid and demanded repeated "tapping." Evidently this unfortunate woman had escaped one dreadful malady only immediately to fall a victim to another.

Many medical men investigated the case, and shook their heads—it was too deep for them. It seemed to occur to no one, except Dr. Hodenpyl, to make certain clearly indicated experiments. Was there any connection, he asked himself, between the appearance of the dropsical fluid and the disappearance of the cancers? Did the fluid, popularly known as "water" (in reality the serum of the blood), contain any properties antagonistic to cancer-that would cure the disease? Had this fluid really destroyed the malignant growths on this woman's body? Could it be injected into the bodies of other cancerous patients and effect similar cures?

Dr. Hodenpyl obtained, by a series of "tappings," several barrels of this dropsical fluid and began his experiments. He injected it first into several white mice in the final stages of cancer. Their tumors disappeared like magic in five or six days! In the course of the next few months, Dr. Hodenpyl injected the same fluid into forty-seven human beings — all suffering from advanced cases of the disease. Perceptible effects immediately followed. The tumors became red and soft, and began to grow smaller. The tumor tissue died and was absorbed or thrown off from the body. In twenty-five cases of the forty-seven the cancers entirely vanished.

Dr. Hodenpyl had apparently made the greatest medical discovery since Sir William Jenner's work on vaccination. He had accomplished the one incredible feat of medicine he had cured inoperable cases of cancer, not in one human being, but in twenty-five! One can hardly exaggerate the feverish excitement which his experiments caused in the medical circles of New York. The news rapidly spread all over the civilized world. I well re

member meeting Dr. Hodenpyl in the spring of 1910, when his experiments had attained what seemed complete success. He was in a high state of emotional excitement, almost bordering on hysteria. Great as seemed his achievement, his position was an extremely pathetic one. His fluid apparently cured inoperable cancer; but he had only a limited quantity, which had been taken from the body of one woman. When this woman died, as she must very soon from her dropsical malady, where was he to obtain more? The scientific spirit demanded that he use this elixir of life for experimental purposes, selecting his cases, keeping everything under strict observation, not once letting it get beyond his control. Yet it seemed as though every person in America and Europe who was suffering from cancerand half as many die from this disease as from tuberculosis was making frantic appeals for help. Dr. Hodenpyl's daily mail was mountainous; so many men and women flooded his office that he could get little time to work. Mr. James Bryce, the British Ambassador, attempted to get a supply of the fluid for a sick English friend; the Russian Ambassador made a personal appeal for a woman of high rank in St. Petersburg. One of the greatest Wall Street financiers once burst into Dr. Hodenpyl's office. His wife, he declared, was a terrible sufferer; he quietly sat down. and informed the physician that he would not leave the room until he had received fluid enough to cure her. "I will have it," he told Dr. Hodenpyl, "if it costs me a million dollars." The man was accustomed merely to nod and be obeyed; Dr. Hodenpyl, however, proved adamant.

A month or two after my meeting with Dr. Hodenpyl, however, the situation. changed. The tumors which had softened and retrogressed began to show new signs of life. The patients whose cancerous growths had entirely disappeared now noticed that small nodules on the same sites were appearing again. Another circumstance deepened the tragedy: the recurring cancers developed more rapidly and more malignantly than the original growths. Even the patient from whom the fluid had been obtained, it presently

appeared, had not been really cured; her tumors reappeared and finally killed her. Probably medical history contains no disappointment so bitter and heartrending as this. Dr. Hodenpyl, half crazed by anxiety, by overwork, by loss of sleep, by the constant demands made upon his sympathy, and by chagrin and agony over the final failure, took to his bed and was dead in a few days. He unquestionably died of a broken heart.

Many before Dr. Hodenpyl, however, had found the "cure" for cancer, with similar results. Six or seven years ago Dr. Beard, of Edinburgh, rushed into print with his celebrated trypsin cure. There was nothing reprehensible or unprofessional about Dr. Hodenpyl's conduct; he behaved, through the whole experience, like a true scientist; the same cannot be said for Dr. Beard. He had injected trypsinthe digestive ferment secreted by the pancreas into two cancerous mice. These two mice both died, but their tumors, said Dr. Beard, had retrogressed. On the basis of these experiments - experiments experiments which had not the slightest scientific significance and of a few more or less. "favorable" results with human beings, Dr. Beard, through Dr. Charles W. Saleeby, encouraged the world to believe that he had found a cure for cancer.

A few months ago Dr. Leo Loeb, one of the pioneer cancer investigators in the United States a man who had done really substantial work-published the results of his experiments with colloidal copper. The injection of this metal produced what were apparently remarkable effects on cancerous growths. They became inflamed, softened, and in many cases perceptibly retrogressed. As Dr. Loeb is a thoroughly scientific man, and completely acquainted with his subject, his publication, which naturally raised utterly unfounded hopes in thousands of cancer patients, has caused considerable consternation. Several French investigators, notably Dr. J. Gaube de Gers, of Paris, had experimented with colloidal copper and found it practically useless. It affected the tumors at first, in some cases caused them to retrogress, but the results proved only temporary. When the growths re

curred, as they did in all cases, they displayed a renewed virulence. According to Dr. Loeb's latest communications, his experiments with colloidal copper, which at first promised well, have had a similar end.

One can hardly take up a newspaper to-day, especially a Sunday edition, without finding a new cancer "cure." These publications do an infinite amount of harm. They not only raise false hopes and so bring medical science into disrepute, but they may cause the needless sacrifice of human lives. As every well-informed doctor will tell you, there is only one possible treatment for the disease. Cancer in its early stage can, in many cases, be permanently cured by an operation. Recently, Dr. William J. Mayo, of Rochester, Minn., announced remarkable results in the cure, by operation, of even so difficult a disease as cancer of the stomach. That is the only escape which medical science now presents. The constant publication of "cures" leads many people, still in the operable stage, to delay this drastic treatment until it is too late. For this reason such publications are a real affirmative evil that should be stopped.

However, many such cancer "cures" have been announced in the past, and no doubt many will appear in the future. The story of Dr. Hodenpyl shows how conservatively we must receive them. From its very nature cancer lends itself to delusions of this kind. It is the willo'-the-wisp of medicine; it leads the patient investigator on step by step, constantly making him believe that he has found the secret, only to overwhelm him finally with despair. Of all medical investigators none are subject to such fits of gloom and pessimism as those who are devoting their lives to this disease. And, at this time, it is worth while to show, on scientific grounds, why cancer investigators, even the most conscientious, are deluded into believing that they have found the cure for the disease.

One might suppose, from what has been said above, that science had made little progress in the study of malignant tumors. But in the last ten years it has taken tremendous strides. We have learned more about cancer in the last six years than in

he preceding six thousand. In a recent ddress, made in the United States, Prof. Paul Ehrlich, of Frankfort - probably he world's greatest living medical scienist — declared that the beginning of the end of the cancer problem was in sight. The ultimate conquest of the disease," he added, "is as inevitable as was the taking of Port Arthur after the Japanese had captured the first trench."

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10,000

15,500

Tuberculosis

15,000

14,500

14,000

13,500

18,000

12,500

12,000

11,500

11,000

10,500

10,000

9,500

9,000

8,500

8,000

7,500

Cancer

7,000

0,500

6,000

5,500

6,000

4,500

4,000

3,500

3,000

2,500

2,000

1,500

1,000

600

The scientific study of cancer began!! about ten years ago, when several investigators, here and in Europe, succeeded in artificially inducing these growths upon rats and mice. Mice, because they could be obtained readily and cheaply in large numbers, and were easily taken care of, became to cancer research what the test tube is to regular bacterial diseases. The laboratories began using these little animals by the thousand. The investigators scoured the market for mice with naturally growing tumors; these growths they removed in minute sections and injected into healthy mice. From the beginning, however, the implanted tumors began to display noteworthy eccentricities. The great majority of mice proved absolutely resistant to the disease. Of one hundred mice inoculated, only two or three contracted cancer. Dr. Harvey R. Gaylord and Dr. G. H. A. Clowes, at the Buffalo laboratory for cancer research, soon discovered an even more remarkable fact. They found that 20 per cent. of their cancerous mice spontaneously recovered from the disease. An inoculated cancer would develop for a particular time, then stop growing and retrogress. In a few weeks a smooth and glossy surface, indistinguishable from the rest of the animal's body, would replace the area which the tumor had formerly covered. These spontaneously-recovered mice never again developed the disease. Moreover, the experimenters could not make cancer grow on them again; repeated inoculations, even of heavy doses, failed to induce a recurrence of the growth.

These observations constitute the greatest single discovery made in cancer research. Their significance is at once apparent. They mean that cancer is not necessarily an incurable disease. In the

THE REMARKABLE INCREASE IN CANCER

THIS DIAGRAM SHOWS THE NUMBER OF DEATHS
YEARLY FOR THE LAST TEN YEARS FROM TUBERCU-
LOSIS AND FROM CANCER IN THE STATE OF NEW
YORK, AND ILLUSTRATES THE UNIVERSALLY OB-

SERVED FACT THAT TUBERCULOSIS IS VERY GRADU-
ALLY DIMINISHING, WHEREAS CANCER IS RAPIDLY
INCREASING, IN PREVALENCE

of malignant tumors in human beings have found their way into medical literature. Before the Gaylord and Clowes experiments, however, science had always ridiculed these stories. Now the investigators saw that many of these reported cures were genuine. They are extremely rare-infinitely rarer among human beings than among mice; but now and then they do take

place. Especially significant was the discovery that the small tumors were the ones that showed the greatest tendency to disappear. It is not unlikely that many of us have been afflicted with minute tumors without knowing anything about it. Particularly would this be the case if they assailed interior parts of the body, as they so frequently do.

The investigators now found that many substances, injected into cancerous mice, had a remarkable influence upon their tumors. Some substances would make them grow faster; others would cause them to retrogress. Dr. Clowes, of the Buffalo laboratory, showed that the several chemical substances belonging to the tetrabrom creosol group had a considerable inhibiting effect. Dr. Wasserman, in Germany, demonstrated that selenium-eosin made the tumors break down and grow smaller entirely disappear. Finally, Dr. Neuberg and Dr. Caspari proved that nearly all metals in organic compounds would produce the same results. Merely the injection of salt solutions, in some cases, had a curative effect. One investigator inoculated cancer tissue from a human patient into a rat; the tumors on the rat became smaller. Perhaps the most remarkable result was obtained by Professor Ehrlich. He attempted to treat cancerous mice by a process that was essentially vaccination. He inoculated his little patients with a very weak strain of cancer tissue. At regular intervals he made other inoculations, each time increasing the virulence of his strain. As a result the mice, in some cases, entirely recovered in others they did not. It was comparatively simple, Professor Ehrlich found, to vaccinate healthy mice and in this way make them immune to cancer.

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Could similar results be obtained on human beings? In some cases, yes. Several chemicals and foreign substances have been found that check the growth of cancer at least temporarily. Thyroid extract occasionally works the miracle. The late Dr. Bull, the famous New York surgeon, was troubled for several years by a malignant growth on the neck. Thyroid extract brought about a retrogression. Dr. Bull, however, subsequently

died of the disease. If the investigat could experiment with human being : freely as they do with mice, they woul probably accomplish similar results. Whe injecting these foreign substances int mice, however, they can afford to take chances; their doses are so enormous the they always kill about as many as the cure. Obviously they cannot treat huma beings in this way. If Ehrlich's vaccine tion procedure could be adopted for m and women, many of us could be rendere immune to cancer. So large a percentag of vaccinated mice die as a result of the vaccination, however, that the procedure in its present state of development is t likely to become general.

American science, however, has one remarkable cure of this kind to its credi Several years ago a boy suffering from a enormous malignant tumor on the ja appeared at the Buffalo institute. T case was inoperable; under the most favorable circumstances the patient coul live only a few months. As the physicians could take chances in a case of this kind they decided to try vaccination. The injected into the boy generous section from the tumor of a rat. The grow softened, retrogressed, died, and w finally absorbed. This happened thre years ago, and, so far, there has been a

recurrence.

The experienced scientists who obtai these results, however, do not wide advertise them as "cures" for cancer Dr. Gaylord, for example, who restored this boy to health, does not regard vacc nation with rat sarcoma as a specif treatment in human cancer. He obtaine this result only once; he has tried the same thing repeatedly in other cases and has failed. The numerous inves tigators who have restored cancerous mice to health, temporarily and permi nently, do not pretend that they ca cure human beings. These well-know phenomena, however, explain the even day newspaper announcements of cancer cures. Most of the "discoverers," when they are not dishonest, are amateurs in cancer experimentation and do not know how to interpret their facts. An injection of some metallic substance, or "serum,"

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