Some remarks on the infectivity of cancer : being an address delivered at a meeting of the East Yorks Division of the British Medical Association at Hull on November 15th, 1907 / by A.T. Brand.

  • Brand, Alexander Theodore, 1852-1934.
Date:
[1908]
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Some remarks on the infectivity of cancer : being an address delivered at a meeting of the East Yorks Division of the British Medical Association at Hull on November 15th, 1907 / by A.T. Brand. 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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    while the origin of the enormous majority of malignant new growths is left unaccounted for by his hypothesis ; but the primary type of origin accounts for this majority and supplies the original neoplasm from which the living cell, apparently acting as an independent parasite, emanates. It also accounts for the great variety of malignant neoplasms, a variety only limited by the anatomical diversity of tissues. All this demonstrates how true a parasite the micro- organism responsible for cancer is. In the secondary type we find it comfortably ensconced in a living cell which it compels to slave for it, when implanted in any situation, stimulating it to proliferate and so provide accommodation for its numerous progeny. It exerts no personal influence whatever on the surrounding local tissue cells, which are generous enough to furnish the invaders with food supplies. It is only when death of the host occurs, or if perchance a cell dies and becomes detached from the colony, that its tyranny ceases for a time. Now it must make personal exertion and endeavour to find a fresh victim in the cell of the nearest available living tissue. Having succeeded in gaining a footing it proceeds to induce the selected invaded cell to commence work by proliferating, and the process progresses as before except that this time it is the cells of the local tissue which have both to increase in number and find their own food. This is the primary type. In all other parasitic diseases the micro-organism of causation rema’ns free and active personally, but the cancer parasite is the truest parasite of them all, for it never exists free if it can avoid it, but clings to its cell-host with indomitable pertinacity. The Parasite of Cancer. Although its presence is proved by induction, as is also the existence of, for example, the micro-parasite of variola, the parasitic agent of cancer is, as the Germans say, “ nock nicht Jwnstatirt” (it has not yet been conclusively demonstrated). Doyen of Paris believes that the bacterium known as “ micro- coccus neoformans ” is the germ responsible for cancer. This belief appears to be corroborated by the researches of Dr. C. Jacobs and Dr. Victor Geets, the result of which was communicated by them to the Royal Belgian Academy of Medicine at Brussels in January, 1906 13 These observers report that it is practicable to immunise the human organism by means of a series of inoculations of the micrococcus