Evening star., 1938-12-27
Chemicals Offered
To Remove Mystery
OF Cancer
Scientific ConcIuve
Scientific ConcIuve
Told Cell Balance
May Effect Cures
BY HOWARD w. BLAKESLEE,
Associated Press Science Editor

RICHMOND, Va, Dec. 27-Two
newly found. looking chemical
products of the body. which may go
far toward explaining the long
sought cause of cancer, were shown
to the American Association for the
Advancement of Science here today.
The pair promises to strip the
elusive cause of much mystery and
indicate that it is due to "unbalance"
OF tissue cell activity. Unbalance is
one of the original medical ex-
plantations, but these chemicals, in
tests all the way to actual cancer,
indicate for the first time more of
the things that get out of balance
and why.
The discoveries were presented by
the Institutum Divi Thomae of
Cincinnati. 1t is Catholic research
institution, sponsored by the arch
diocese of Cincinnati, established to
train young scientists, and concen-
trating on search for cause and
cure of cancer.
Chemicals Seen in Making.
White clad sisters, who work as
assistants under direction of a group
of brilliant young scientists, showed
the chemicals in actual making.
They stood behind rows of long,
vertical glass tubes, rocking them
to and fro in mixing. Ultra violet
lamps and test tubes were manip-
ulated to show chemical-physical
techniques which it is hoped other
scientists will find useful in at
tacking this second-largest de-
stroyer of human life.
, The queer new chemicals were
shown in two little bottles which the
scientists in charge carried in vest
pockets. One of these chemicals
looked like pinch of cigarette to-
hacco, quite dark The other was
pure white crystals.
Multiplies Cells.
The dark stuff causes cell pro-
liferation,' which is the medical
term to describe the rapid multiple
cation or growth which not only
happens when the body repairs a
wound, but is also the main feature
Of cancer. This same brown
chemical also causes a speeding up
in process known as glycolysis,
which is one of the ways that It's
sue cell breaks down sugar to feed
itself.
This particular kind of glycolysis
speed-up is also one of the long
known features of cancer.
The white crystals speed up res,
piration," which is the word for the
way tissue cell uses oxygen. 1t
is a cells substitute for breathing.
Here again cancer comes in, for
the malignant growths have a differ
ent rate of using oxygen.
Medical experts have reported
that the malignant tissues used
oxygen more slowly than normal
This, the Cincinnati discoveries in
dicate, is not true.
The cancers merely seem to use
oxygen slower because their cell
growth and glycolysis are so much
faster.
Suspect Balance Is Solution.
Therefore the Cincinnati scientists
thought that if the oxygen use of
malignant growth could be speeded
up to equal the other two wild
growth features, the cancer might
be stopped. This would happen be-
cause the balance found in normal
growth had been restored.
That is exactly what happened,
they reported, in a series of pre-
iminary experiments.
The cigarette" chemical caused
tumors in animals. Giving the white
crystals to speed up respiration
stopped the tumors. Use of the
white crystals on transplanted an
imal cancer caused the growths to
disappear.
Curing animal cancers has nothing
to do with human maIgnancies, so
that these chemicals cannot be used
for human treatment. If the further
experiments show that this kind of
"unbalance" is at the root of cancer
the problem of application will then
be undertaken.