Word: cancer
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...with only ten states reporting, the ten leading causes of death were: 1) pneumonia and influenza; 2) tuberculosis; 3) diarrhea, enteritis and intestinal ulcers; 4) heart disease; 5) cerebral hemorrhage; 6) nephritis (kidney inflammation); 7) accidents; 8) cancer; 9) diphtheria; 10) premature birth...
...Cancer researchers have looked long for a specific poison secreted by cancer cells. If such a substance could be detected in a cancer patient's blood, early diagnosis should be easy. Roskin started by testing the effect of serum from cancerous mice on the sensitive paramecium, a single-celled protozoan.* The serum had no effect. But when it was inactivated by freezing, and then mixed in carefully measured proportions with healthy guinea-pig serum, the mixture developed a toxic factor which killed paramecia...
Roskin proceeded to test the serum of cancerous rabbits, then of human patients, found to his delight that when properly prepared, it was highly toxic to paramecia. No other serum, not even that from patients with benign tumors, produced the same effect. The paramecia-killing power of serum from animals with implanted cancer varied with the type of cancer. A cancer can sometimes be detected two days after it is implanted, before any visible tumor has developed...
...test is not infallible. But on the basis of tests with serum from 75 patients, Roskin thinks his method shows great promise, not only of detecting cancer early, but of identifying cancer type...
...Cancer's estimated annual worldwide toll: 1,000,000. *The paramecium, a slipper-shaped animalcule less than 1/125 of an inch long, comes in eight sexes, multiples by dividing itself in two, lives in lily ponds, goldfish bowls, is sometimes found in drinking water...