Cancer Crusade (Cont'd.)

"But for Heaven's sake! Are you going to build a Chinese wall around new methods?"

Herbert Livingston Satterlee, lawyer brother-in-law of J. P. Morgan, last week flung aside his usual self-restraint and snapped the exclamatory question at Dr. John Augustus Hartwell, president of the New York Academy of Medicine. Mr. Satterlee as lawyer was asking the New York State Department of Social Welfare's permission for San Francisco's Drs. Walter Bernard Coffey and John Davis Humber to operate a cancer research laboratory and clinic at Huntington, L. I. Arguing against the permit were Dr. Hartwell, Dr. Francis Carter Wood, director of Columbia University's Institute of Cancer Research, Dr. William Hallock Park, immunologist, and other chiefs of New York medicine.

Drs. Coffey & Humber, who work for the Southern Pacific Co. in San Francisco, last year cautiously announced that they were alleviating hopeless cases of cancer by means of adrenal cortex extract derived from sheep. The Hearst press recognized the kernel of news in this announcement and puffed it so that thousands of cancer victims abandoned the orthodox treatment of surgery, X-rays and radium, rushed for the sure-cure.

The two doctors were amazed, but nonetheless swam with the tide of publicity and patients. They opened auxiliary clinics at Los Angeles and Long Beach. They went before a Senate committee to argue for Government aid for cancer research. They gained a patent for their extract.* Mrs. Grace Hammond Conners, widow of the Buffalo ship owner, newspaper publisher and political boss, William James ("Fingy") Conners, gave Drs. Coffey & Humber her $1,000,000 estate, "The Monastery," at Huntington, L. I. (TIME, Nov. 3).

Although Dr. Hartwell & friends who last week opposed opening "The Monastery" as a clinic "do not for a minute question the sincerity of Drs. Coffey and Humber in believing they have something of value," the critics "do question the way they have handled their work." The New York men are certain that their San Francisco colleagues have had no training to qualify for research in "the most complex field that exists" in medicine. They do not believe that adrenal cortex extract will cure cancer or that it has value in cancer treatment, yet are willing to experiment with it on animals. They fear that the Californians will experiment on New York humans, hence want them (or at least their methods; excluded, to remain in California where patients are ''abundantly available."

This was obviously a campaign to ostracize Drs. Coffey & Humber from Manhattan's vicinity. It was conducted--as Lawyer Satterlee diligently pointed out--"by persons who had their own methods, hospitals and funds." It was a "Chinese Wall," against which he protested to Heaven.

To Lawyer Satterlee's cry, Dr. Hartwell tartly replied: "We are doing everything we can do on the advice of men who have been trained throughout their lives in this particular field. . . ."

The State Department of Social Welfare withheld decision on the Coffey-Humber permit.

Unperturbed by such dispute, patient, industrious men continued to pry at Cancer's secrets.

Murphy's Agent. At the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, Dr. James Bumgardner Murphy and three associates have found what they call an inhibiting agent in a particular kind of chicken tumor. They filtered some tumor material. Such filtrate generally creates a new tumor in a definite period of time. When Dr. Murphy washed the filtrate in several changes of water he found that the residue was much more active than the original filtrate. Plainly the wash water had carried away some cancer dampener, which might be used to cure the disease. What its exact nature is, or the mechanism of its production, or the biochemistry of its reaction, Dr. Murphy does not know exactly. Until he does, he will not experiment on humans.

Glutathione. At the National Institute of Health, Pharmacologist Director Carl Voegtlin & associates observed that an organic sulphur compound, glutathione, present in all living body cells, is concerned with the body's defense against the toxic action of arsenic and certain other poisons. Glutathione occurs in large quantities in cancer cells. It occurred to Professor Voegtlin and Dr. Harold W. Chalkley, an associate, that glutathione might be a contributing cause of cancer. Forthwith they immersed amoebae (single- celled animalcules) in a glutathione solu-tion.* The amoebae reproduced themselves by subdivision (as all cells do) with extraordinary ease, confirming the Voegt-lin-Chalkley suspicion that perhaps the rampant growth of cancer cells is attributable to glutathione, and suggesting that glutathione in the body might be Cancer's nemesis.

*In April 1930 the Patent Office refused them the patent. But Dr. Ray Lyman Wilbur, Secretary of the Interior, asked the Patent Office to handle the matter with special expedition. On July 1, 1930 Drs. Coffey & Humber resubmitted their patent application, had it granted the next day. This vexed Professor John Morse Rehfisch of Stanford University School of Medicine (Dr. Wilbur is president of Stanford University in absentia, Herbert Hoover a trustee). In sarcastic comment to the American Medical Association Dr. Rehfisch called the patent grant "an example of speed and efficiency which is a true tribute to the Great Engineer and his strong, silent way of getting things done."

*Eastman Kodak Co., great manufacturer of rare chemicals, sells glutathione for $283.50 an ounce.

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