These neoplasms are not so rare, as there are ninety-nine authentically recorded cases, situated within the restricted domain of the naso-pharynx and pharynx.
For these reasons, and because I have been able to find only one case of sarcoma treated with Coley’s fluid reported in our homeopathic literature, do I take the liberty of occupying your time with the résumé of my investigations into the subject and my meager practical experience.
Although surgery is, at present, the best method to meet this condition, personally I believe that more investigation into or trials of the remedial treatment should be made, because cancer is a constitutional disease, and it so very frequently recurs after removal with the knife.
Apropos to this, C. Mansell Moullin says in the Boston Medical Journal: “There is at least as much hope after an internal remedy that causes disappearance by atrophy or fatty degeneration as from the most extensive removal by operation. On a priori grounds there may be even more.”
Among the numerous drugs or substances which have been experimented with are the interstitial injection of alcohol 40 per cent., by Haase; the injection of Pure Yeast Ferment, by De Bracher; subcutaneous use of 50 per cent. solution of the fluid extract of chelidonium majus re-enforced by same drug per orem; the cataphoric diffusion of mercury from gold electrodes used by Massey; and lastly the mixed toxins of the streptococcus erysipelas and bacillus prodigiosus.
From my research the last is the only one that has attained any success or wide reputation and not been relegated to the usual oblivion of other medical fads. The reason for this I consider to be because Dr. Coley has not only been persevering, but scientific, unbiased, and very cautious in its advocacy. At first he hoped and believed that in some form it would be beneficial in all forms of cancer; but he now only recommends it in sarcoma, and claims marked results only in the spindle-celled variety of this.
As in many other cases, the discovery of the influence of erysipelas on sarcomatous growths was by investigation founded upon accidental occurrences, to wit: Busch reported a case of multiple sarcoma of the face cured by an attack of facial erysipelas; Durante, a sarcoma of the neck; Biedert, an enormous round-celled sarcoma, including the mouth, nose, and pharynx; Bruns, a melanotic sarcoma of the breast; Gerster and Bull, each a recurrent sarcoma of the neck; all cured or disappeared with no return, after an erysipelatous attack. This happy result does not always follow erysipelas, as cases of sarcoma relieved by erysipelas, and later recurring or progressing after the attack is over, are reported by Busch, Nelaton, Deleus, Richochon, Winslow, Powes, and Dowd.
On account of these accidental cures a few observers produced erysipelas artificially by infusion with the living culture, with success in many cases.
Then almost simultaneously Lassar of Berlin, Spronck of Utrecht, and Coley of New York, believing that the curative action of erysipelas lay in the toxin of the living culture, experimented and found that they could produce equally good results with toxin, thereby avoiding both the danger and discomfort of the patient passing through an attack of erysipelas.
It has been shown by different observers that the combination of certain bacilli with disease toxins makes such toxins more potent, and Rogers of Paris demonstrated that the combination of the bacillus prodigiosus with the streptococcus of erysipelas greatly augmented the virulence of the streptococcus on rabbits. Thereupon Dr. Coley used the combination on the human subject in sarcoma with far better results than before.