The Breakdown of Hereditary Immunity to a Transplantable Tumor by the Introduction of an Irritating Agent

Abstract

The experiments reported in this paper were undertaken to test the effect of an external irritating agent in the production of susceptibility to an inoculable tumor in non-susceptible strains of mice. The role played by irritation in the production of malignant growths de novo has been considered of great importance by clinicians and experimentalists alike. Thus Carrel (1) has stated … “it is certain that tumors practically always occur at the site of a chronic irritation, sarcoma appearing during youth, and carcinoma during old age. These simple observations indicate that two factors are necessary for the production of cancer—local irritation, and a certain condition of the tissues and the humors, such as takes place in old age and youth.” The factor of chronic irritation in experiments with inoculable tumors has not been particularly stressed up to the present time. Such work has been primarily concerned with the problems connected with Carrel9s second factor, “the certain conditions of the tissues.” These problems have been attacked from various angles, for instance, by means of tissue culture experiments, work on cell physiology, transplantation of normal and of malignant tissues. It is this last line of investigation which has led to the conception of an hereditary mechanism determining the ability or failure of an individual to grow a certain bit of transplanted tissue—or, in the usual terminology, the susceptibility or non-susceptibility of an individual.