The treatment of inoperable sarcoma by bacterial toxins (the mixed toxins of the Streptococcus erysipelas and the Bacillus prodigiosus) / by William B. Coley.

  • Coley, William Bradley, 1862-1926.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The treatment of inoperable sarcoma by bacterial toxins (the mixed toxins of the Streptococcus erysipelas and the Bacillus prodigiosus) / 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.

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    pronounced inoperable by Dr. Charles McBurney when I began the treatment. The second case was a spindle-celled sarcoma of the breast and pectoral region; diagnosis confirmed by Dr. W. H. Welch, of Johns Hopkins Medical School; treated under my direction at Hartford; well fourteen years. The third case was a round-celled sarcoma of the tonsil and larynx, with metastases in both cervical regions. Entire disappearance under six months’ treatment; well at present, nearly three years afterwards; diagnosis confirmed by microscopical examin- ation, Cornell Medical Schools Laboratory. In my paper of April, 1906, American Journal of the Medical Sciences, I tabulated the successful cases of other men, sixty in number. Since that time, from personal communications and published reports, this number has greatly increased, until now I believe that considerably more than 100 cases have been successfully treated by other surgeons. I am much gratified to find two successful cases, recently reported in the Lancet, March 20 and May 22, 1909. I cannot give in detail all of my successful cases. This would require too much space, and the majority have already been reported in my paper published in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, March, 1906, and in the Annals of Surgery—Transactions of the New York Surgical Society—since that date. I believe, however, that it may be of sufficient interest to give a brief history of a few of these cases, together with a brief abstract of the entire number :— (1) Inoperable Spindle-celled Sarcoma of the Abdominal Wall; entire dis- appearance under two and a half months’ treatment with the filtered and unfiltered toxins; patient perfectly well at present, fourteen years afterward.— Upon this patient exploratory laparotomy was performed in August, 1893, at the Massachusetts General Hospital, hy Dr. Maurice H. Richardson, now Professor of Surgery at the Harvard Medical School. The tumour was found to involve such a large portion of the abdominal wall that removal was quite impossible. A portion was excised and examined hy Dr. W. F. Whitney, pathologist of the Massachusetts General Hospital, who pronounced it spindle- celled sarcoma. The patient was referred to me hy Dr. Richardson in October, 1893, and immediately put upon the injections of the mixed toxins. After her return home, two and a half months later, she had no further treat- ment, and she has remained perfectly well up to the present time. (2) Spindle-celled Sarcoma of the Scapular Region, involving a large part of the left half of the Thoracic Wall. (Diagnosis confirmed by microscopic examination made by Dr. H. T. Brooks, Professor of Pathology at the Post- graduate Hospital.)—The patient was admitted to the New York Cancer Hospital on January 20, 1894. The tumour entirely disappeared under three