The treatment of malignant tumors by repeated inoculations of erysipelas : with a report of ten original cases / by William B. Coley.

  • Coley, William B. (William Bradley), 1862-1936.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The treatment of malignant tumors by repeated inoculations of erysipelas : with a report of ten original cases / by William B. Coley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF THE MEDICAL SCIENCES. MAY, 1 8 9 3. THE TREATMENT OF MALIGNANT TUMORS BY REPEATED INOCULATIONS OF ERYSIPELAS: WITH A REPORT OF TEN ORIGINAL CASES.1 By William B. Coley, M.D., ASSISTANT SURGEON TO THE HOSPITAL FOR RUPTURED AND CRIPPLED ; INSTRUCTOR IN SURGERY IN THE POST-GRADUATE MEDICAL SCHOOL, NEW YORK. In a paper published in the Annals of Surgery, in September, 1891, entitled “ A Contribution to the Knowledge of Sarcoma,” I referred at some length to the curative effect of erysipelas upon sarcoma, reporting the results of inoculation in three cases recently treated by myself. At the time I began my investigations in this most interesting subject I had not read of Fehleisen’s experiments in Germany. While collect¬ ing the cases of sarcoma treated at the New York Hospital during the past fifteen years, I found a case that, to my mind, had convin¬ cing evidence that erysipelas possessed a powerful curative principle antagonistic to sarcoma. (Fig. 1.) Whether or not this principle could be isolated or utilized in the practical treatment of sarcoma was quite another question, yet one of sufficient interest and importance to lead me at once into making a thorough study of the subject. Before going further it might be well to give a few points of interest in the case I have mentioned : This was one of round-celled sarcoma of the neck, occurring in a German, aged thirty-one years. Five operations had been performed 1 Read (in part) before the Surgical Section of the New York Academy of Medicine, December 12, 1892. VOL. 105, NO. 5—MAY, 1893.