THE WILLIAM F. KOCH CANCER REMEDY
A number of inquiries have been received of which those that follow are typical. This from a Philadelphia physician:
“Would you give me any information you have about one so-called ‘Dr. W. S. Koch,’ Detroit, Michigan? This man is said to claim to have in his possession a cure for cancer, the nature of which I do not know. I know, however, that he obtained a very large fee not very long ago in treating a case, but without success ...”
While a Chicago physician writes:
“I have at hand a pamphlet from Wm. F. Koch, M.D., Ph.D., of Detroit, Mich., which is supposed to be a reprint from the Medical Record of Oct. 30, 1920, entitled ‘A New and Successful Diagnosis and Treatment of Cancer.’ Will you kindly advise me what you know about this man’s work on this subject and how much stock I can put in the claims he makes in this article?”
And this from a physician in Seattle, received a few days ago:
“Has your office any knowledge of the cancer cure devised by Dr. William F. Koch, Ph.D., M.D., of Detroit? He published an article on it in the Medical Record, Oct. 30, 1920.... I enclose copy of letter received by one of our patients from his ‘western representative’ which reads like pure quackery. I do not find Dr. Koch’s name in either the A. M. A. or Polk’s medical directories.”
The letter referred to in the last inquiry as coming from Dr. Koch’s “western representative” was addressed to a woman who had written to Dr. Koch with reference to his alleged cancer cure. The letter, dated Jan. 19, 1921, was signed “Chas. L. Tisdale, 1898 Geary Street, San Francisco.” It read:
“Dear Madam:—Your letter of January 10th written to Dr. Koch of Detroit in reference to his cancer cure has been sent to me by Dr. Koch. I am the western representative of Dr. Koch and am giving the treatments with his remedy. I am now treating 14 cases here with some most wonderful results. The amount of the remedy that Dr. Koch can supply me with is limited and it is a very expensive substance. None of it can be sent to Seattle or any other place for I have only enough to treat the cases that are constantly presenting themselves here. If you could come to San Francisco and have the money to pay a reasonable fee, say enough to pay for the remedy, I would be very glad to do everything I can for you.
“The results that have already shown in many of these cases warrant me in believing that almost any case of cancer can be cured if the treatment is persisted in.”
According to our records, Dr. William F. Koch of Detroit was born in 1885. Some years ago he graduated in chemistry and for some time held the position of professor of physiology and physiologic chemistry at the Detroit College of Medicine and Surgery. In 1918, Dr. Koch received his degree in medicine from this same college. Less than a year after his graduation, Dr. Koch declared that he had “developed a real specific cure for cancer.” In the Detroit Medical Journal for July, 1919, there appeared a brief article by William F. Koch, entitled “A New and Successful Treatment and Diagnosis of Cancer.” A more extensive article bearing the same title was published in the New York Medical Journal of Oct. 30, 1920.
As a result of the publicity that was given the Koch treatment, the Wayne County (Detroit) Medical Society appointed a committee to investigate the treatment. Its first report appeared in the Bulletin of the society for Dec. 22, 1919. Briefly, this report said that the Board of Health of Detroit had placed at the disposal of the committee twelve beds in a local hospital with the necessary special nurses and everything else required free of charge. The committee sent certain patients to the hospital; and there were also some other patients recommended by different physicians as proper cases for treatment. There were nine altogether. After going over the cases carefully, the committee found some in which the diagnosis was doubtful. There were five cases, however, of undoubted cancer, a positive diagnosis having been made from specimens and microscopic examination. The management and treatment of these patients were turned over to Dr. Koch.
Dr. Koch seems to have raised certain objections and to have made certain criticisms. He also insisted that he ought to have some representative on the committee. The committee offered to put on any and all he would name. He failed to name any. The committee reported further that Dr. Koch was very negligent in his treatment of the patients and finally, on November 26, the committee met with Koch and went over all the cases with him. At that time he gave the patients injections and promised to attend to the treatment regularly in the future. According to the report, he saw the patients only once more (three days later) and then did not come near them again. As the patients became disgusted with the neglect, some of them left and the committee sent the rest home and closed its connections with the investigation of the subject.
In the same issue of the Bulletin of the county society in which this committee’s report was published, the editor of the Bulletin stated that from all sections of the country inquiries were coming relative to the treatment and “from long distances patients are coming to Detroit to be ‘cured’ of cancer.” The editor further stated: “It is reported that Dr. Koch is treating many patients, promising much and charging well.” To this Dr. Koch retorted that only about 30 per cent. of his patients had “contributed.” The rest were treated free.
The Wayne County Medical Society Bulletin for Jan. 5, 1920, was devoted almost exclusively to another discussion of Dr. Koch’s “cancer cure.” It was there stated that a second committee had been appointed to gather what information could be obtained from outside sources relative to cases treated by Dr. Koch. This committee reported that of fifty-six cases of which it was able to obtain data, only three of the patients showed clinical improvement; twenty-one of the patients were dead. Three more patients treated both by the Koch injections and by operation were reported as clinically improved. The condition of eighteen of the patients was reported as stationary, or unimproved. In eleven of the cases, the results were unknown but the surgeons reported unfavorably.
The committee reported further that Dr. Koch’s records were incomplete and that he had submitted no proof that his injections have any particular merit and the committee concluded that the study “is entirely experimental and improperly supervised.”
Evidently, the most that can be said of Dr. Koch’s alleged “cure” for cancer is that the claims made for it have not been supported by independent investigators.—(From The Journal A. M. A., Feb. 12, 1921.)
Further Comment
Last week some space was given to the alleged cure for cancer put out by Dr. William F. Koch of Detroit. Incidentally, it should be mentioned that Dr. Koch’s article of Oct. 30, 1920, to which reference was made, appeared not in the New York Medical Journal, as stated, but in the New York Medical Record.
The following correspondence throws additional light on the subject:
To the Editor:—To the number of inquiries which you have received regarding the alleged cure of cancer by Dr. Koch, permit me to add the following personal experience. On July 1, 1920, I was asked to examine an ex-patient of mine whom I had not seen professionally for many years. Her husband frankly told me that for several months his wife had been treated by Dr. W. F. Koch for inoperable carcinoma of the pelvic organs, that he wished Dr. Koch to retain charge of the treatment but hoped I would give my opinion regarding certain nervous manifestations in the patient which were causing him (her husband) much concern.
At the same time, he showed me a letter written by Dr. Koch purporting to explain the symptoms and offering suggestions regarding treatment. I called on the patient and found her in the last stages of generalized carcinomatosis. Simple palpation of the abdomen revealed multiple nodules involving both lower and upper abdominal quadrants. I did not feel justified in making a pelvic examination but noted a profuse foul-smelling discharge on the vulvar pad. My prognosis did not meet with the deluded husband’s approval. The patient died within a week and a necropsy confirmed the clinical picture of carcinomatosis. Enclosed is Dr. Koch’s letter; the patient’s name should, of course, be omitted if you see fit to publish this note.
George de Tarnowsky, M.D., Chicago.
The letter from Dr. Koch which Dr. de Tarnowsky enclosed with his own, follows. We have, of course, deleted the name of the patient.
Dear Doctor: Mrs. —— has absorbed and is still absorbing some killed tumor tissue. She has absorbed some three pounds, I judge. The results of the absorption are intoxication quite general (nervous, muscular, perhaps nephritic). The myocardium at present shows no signs of poisoning but the skeletal muscles and nerve do. The important toxin liberated by the killed tissue is methyl cyanimide which combines ammonia (NH2){sic} from the amino acids, and thus becomes methyl guanidine. This latter has produced in my patients an intoxication varying in similarity to: idiopathic tetany in children, chorea in children, eclampsia in women, and has even been so severe as tetanus in some of the muscle spasms; a toxic albuminuria has resulted in some of my cases.
All of my cases have cleaned up so far. Of course, I cannot predict in any individual case, except that when the absorption has been completed and the toxin all eliminated, everything should return to normal, unless the toxin has destroyed tissue beyond physiological repair. My suggestions as to treatment would be elimination, saving the kidneys as much as possible, by whatever methods you find best and necessary.
At present I am treating symptomatically thus—atropin as a guanidine antidote, arsenic as a chorea coupled antidote as a prevention to the production of guanidine from the cyanimide, the use of dilute hydrochloric acid has proven successful to me. Even a urine boiling solid—albumen has cleared up in one case in three days just by taking large quantities of 1⁄2 per cent HCl. I am explaining the factors I have contended with in these cases, but do not want to influence your plan of treatment when your judgment finds me insufficient.
Sincerely,
Wm. F. Koch.
I shall have a publication out very soon on the treatment of these tetanics and eclampsia with HCl.
It is worth noting that this letter of Dr. Koch’s was written June 28, just three days before Dr. de Tarnowsky saw Mrs. —— and less than a week before she died of generalized carcinoma.
Not the least important element in the story which these two letters tell is the optimism engendered in the husband of the poor cancer patient by the widely vaunted treatment of Koch. And herein lies one of the most pernicious features connected with the exploitation of alleged cures for cancer, tuberculosis, etc. All such remedies, whether fraudulent both in their inception and exploitation or those which while equally worthless are at least honestly put forward and are based on a certain amount of scientific investigation, produce a profound and marked temporary change in the patient’s condition. It is this that tends to warp the judgment not only of the unscientific layman, but also of the physician. The psychic element in cancer has been well described by Weil:
“It is, indeed, very remarkable that a patient who has been consigned to death as a victim of a hopeless malady, should regain his spirits and his appetite, when he is again confronted with the hope of a cure, and of the eradication of his disease? It is a phenomenon well known to every student of the disease that a large proportion of cases responds in just this manner to any treatment which is offered them. Osler has described a case of cancer of the stomach in which the mere visit to a consultant of sanguine temperament, though poor judgment, whose assurance of the patient that there was no possibility of cancer, resulted in the disappearance of all the symptoms and a gain of 18 pounds in weight. It is this psychic influence, which has occasionally deluded the honest student of cancer cure, and which has also so generously played into the hands of the dishonest.”—(From The Journal A. M. A., Feb. 19, 1921.)