Liver & Cancer
Doctors do not know the cause of cancer, but scientists have producedtumors by rubbing mice with certain coal-tar substances and syntheticchemicals. The great research problem now is to grow tumors in micewith extracts from human cancer victims. Six weeks ago Dr. JohnFrederick Menke of Stanford University Hospital announced that he hadinjected mice with fat-soluble essences from human breast cancers. Forthe first time in cancer history, he claimed, two of the mice had growntumors. But his experiments have not yet been confirmed.
Meantime, Dr. Paul Eby Steiner of the University of Chicago was workingon a different track. Since human bile salts are close chemicalrelatives of the cancer-producing synthetics, he concentrated on theliver. Last week in Science he announced: "An extract has beenprepared from the livers of persons who died of cancer, which on …injection into mice produced sarcomas at the site ofinjection."*
Dr. Steiner procured over 20 pounds of livers frompersons who had died from cancer of the stomach, lung, esophagus,pancreas, rectum. All the livers were perfectly normal. He ground them,extracted the fat, dried the residue to "a flaky brown materialwith a disagreeable odor."
In June 1939, he injected a solution ofthe powder into 56 mice. Results to date: 1) 36 mice have died ofvarious diseases; 2) seven are still alive and healthy; 3) "13tumors have appeared."
To check this experiment, Dr. Steiner madea like preparation from the livers of persons who had died from avariety of diseases other than cancer, injected the extract into 63mice. No tumors appeared.
Dr. Steiner cautiously refrained from theorizing last week. He does notknow what the cancer-producing substance is.
*Dr. L. M. Schabad of France performed similar experimentsin 1937.
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