The abstracts which follow have been classified for the convenience of the reader under the following headings : Experimental Studies; Animal Tumors; The Digestive Tract Plant Tumors The Pancreas Tissue Culture Studies The Biliary Tract General Clinical and Histologic Observations 'The Suprarenals Diagnosis and Treatment The Female Genital Tract The Skin The Genito-Urinary Tract The Eye The Nervous System The Breast The Bones The Upper Respiratory Tract Hodgkin's Disease and the Leukemias The Salivary Glands Statistics and Public Health Intrathoracic Tumors As with any such scheme of classification, .overlapping has been unavoidable. Shall an article on " Cutaneous Melanoma, an Histological Study" be grouped with the articles on Histology or with the Skin Tumors? Shall Traumatic Cerebral Tumors go under Trauma or The Nervous System? The reader's choice is likely to depend upon his personal interests; an editor may be governed by no such considerations. The attempt has been made, there- fore, to put such articles in the group where they would seem most likely to be sought by the greatest number. It is hoped that this aim has not been entirely missed. If readers of this JOURNALwish to communicate with the writers of articles abstracted in its pages or to secure reprints, the editorial staff will be glad, so far as possible, to supply the addresses of these authors. Photostats of original articles will also be furnished, if desired, to be charged at cost. ABSTRACTS EXPEKI hlENT,\I. STUDIES; SPONTANEOUS ANIMAL TUAIOIIS; PIANT TUhlORS Carcinogenic Action of Small Doses of 1 : 2 : 5 : 6-Dibenzanthracene, T. iV. LETTINGA. De carcinogene werking van kleine doses 1 : 2 : 5 : 6-dibenzanthraceen, (Thesis), Van Gorcum & Co., .iZssen, 1937. 80 p11. 'This monograph describes a series of experin~entscarried out on 150 white mice from a strain having a high incidence of spontaneous mammary carcinomas. Each animal received fi\e weekly injections of 1 : 2 : 5 : 6-dibenzanthracene in lard, 0.5 C.C. of the solution being given in the flank at each injection. The amount of dibenzanthracene in solution was varied so that the dose administered to an animal in the five weeks was from 0.005 to 5.0 nlg. Some of the mice were observed for thirty-six weeks, others for forty-three weeks, at the end of which time they were killed. Of the mice receiving from 0.25 to 5 mg., 46 survived and 43 showed spindle-cell sarcomas at the site of in- jection. Of those receiving s~nallerdoses, 43 of 100 animals developed sarcoma. The smallest total dose which ca~~sedtumor formation was 0.0125 mg., 3 of 20 animals receiving this dose having de\ eloped tumors. Nine cases of mammary carciriorna and 2 of Iymphosarcoma also occurred, but whether the dibenzanthracene played any rGle in their development is difficult to decide. The average time between the first injection and the appearance of tumors varied from sixteen weeks for the largest doses to thirty- four weeks for the smallest, the interval apparently varying in\.ersely with tlie size of the dose. All of the 20 mice receiving 5 mg. and 2.5 mg. of dibenzanthracene developed primary lung tumors as well, but with the smaller doses these occurred only rarely. 1,ettinga I~elievesthat they are for the most part probably benign, that they arise from the alveolar rather than from the bronchial epitheliunl, and that they occur more frequently following large doses of the dibenzanthracene because with such doses small amounts of the substance are more likely to enter the circulation and lodge in the lung. Several tal~les,gralIhs and photomicrographs are included and there is a good bibliography. EDWARDHEIIBERT, JR. Liver Degeneration and Cirrhosis Produced by 1 : 2 : 5 : bDibenzanthracene, A. CLAUDE. Am. J. Cancer 31: 100-103, 1937. Subcutaneous injections of both crude and purified benzene in rabbits produced changes in the li\rer-acute necrosis when the injections were frequent, cirrhosis with intermediate stages of degeneration and regeneration when time was allowed for the liver to recuperate between the injections. Photomicrographs are included. Production of Tumors of the Prostate of the White Rat with 1 : 2-Benzpyrene, R. A. MOOREAND R. H. ~IELCIIIONNA.Am. J. Cancer 30: 731-741, 1937. Se\eral groups of rats were given injections of a 5 per cent solution of 1 : 2-benzpyrene in lard into the prostate. In tlie first group, consisting of 18 healthy animals about 150 days old, 13 carcinomas (72 per cent) and 1 sarcoma (5 per cent) developed. For a second group, cor~sistingof 20 animals castrated at the time of injection, the figures were similar-13 carcinomas (65 per cent) and 1 sarcoma (5 per cent). The third group, of 12 senile rats, between 500 and 600 days old, showed 11 carcinomas (92 per cent) and 2 sarcomas (18 per cent). In animals castrated after develop~llentof carcinoma the course of the tumor was unchanged. Castrated anirnals which received the male sex hormone showed 110th carcinoma and sarcoma, the latter in a higher percentage than in castrated animals not receiving the hormone. I'hotomicrographs are included and there is a bibliography. 495 496 ABSTRACTS Chemically Pure Carcinogenic Substances, A. S. FEDOKEEV.1,es problt:tnes d'oncol. 10: 106-113, 1936. The author treated 20 rats with 1 mg. each of 1 : 2-benzpyrene and obtained one sarcorlia. In 5 out of 10 mice a sarcoma appeared after treatment with benzpyrene. Carcinogenic Action of Dibenzcarbazoles, E. BOYLANDAND A. M. BRUES. Proc. Roy. Soc., ser. B 122: 429-441, 1937. Cancer of the bladder is unduly frequent anlong chenlical workers, and those dealing with naphthylamines and benzidine seem most liable to the disease. It has not been demonstrated satisfactorily that naphthylamines are carcinogenic, and it is possible that it is not they which are responsible for cancer of the bladder, but impurities formed during their manufacture, such as dinaplithylamines and dibenzcarbazoles. Substances of this nature were therefore tested for carcinogenic activity by painting on the skin of mice, and one (which proved most active on niouse skin) also by subcutaneous injec- tion into rats. The most active was 3 : 4 : 5 : 6-dibenzcarbazole but this was toxic. It produced malignant skin turliors in mice in 180 days. Of the other substances tested, 1 : 2 : 5 : 6- dibenzcarbazole was carcinogenic and 1 : 2 : 7 : 8-dibenzcarbazole feebly so. The dinaphthylaniines, o-amino-azotoluene, known to produce hepatoma (Nishiya~na: Gann 29: 285, 1935. Abst. in Am. J. Cancer 27: 574, 1936), and diamino-azobenzene (chrysoidine) all failed to produce tumors on the skin of mice. Spindle-cell sarcomata, one of which was proved transplantable, were produced in rats by subcutaneous in- jections of a colloidal suspension of 3 : 4 : 5 : 6-dibenzcarbazole. In the animals to which these conipounds were applied changes in the urinary tract were not found, but all nice dying after applications of 3 : 4 : 5 : 6-dibenzcarbazole had striking lesions in the liver, the no st characteristic being hyperplasia of the bile- ducts, ranging fro111 localized increase in the number of ducts in the portal spaces to diffuse growth of rnetaplastic Ililiary tissue throughout the lobules. Most of the mice surviving more than 200 days had nodules of altered hepatic cells resembling hepatoma. It was estimated that 0.8 111g. of the substance produced bile-duct hypertrophy and 6 mg. produced hepatoma. None of the mice painted with the other compounds had hyper- trophic biliary or hepatic cell lesions. The action of 3 : 4 : 5 : 6-dibenzcarbazole on the liver is compared and contrasted with that of o-amino-azotoluene. 3 : 4 : 5 : 6-Dibenzcarbazole differs from other known carcinogenic agents in producing hepatoma in addition to epitlieliorna arid sarcoma, and an cpithelioma and a hepatoma can be produced by its action in the same animal. The incidence of skin tumors and hepatic lesions is shown in diagrams and tables and photographs of gross and nlicroscol)ic specin~ensillustrate the hepatic changes. L. FOULDS Influence of Various Polycyclic Hydrocarbons on the Growth Rate of Transplantable Tumors, A. HADDOWAND A. hl. I~OEINSON.Proc. Roy. Soc., ser. 13 122: 442-476, 1937. This paper confirms and amplifies a preliminary report by Haddow (Nature 136: 868, 1935. Abst. in Am. J. Cancer 26: 620, 1936) that carcinogenic hydrocarbons inhibit the growth of transplantable rat tumors. The strains used were the Jensen rat sarcoma, a CValker carcinoma, a transplantablesarcoma (LR-10) induced by 1 : 2 : 5 : 6- dibenzantliracene and another induced by 3 : 4-benzpyrene. A few experiments with the Rous fowl sarcoma gave similar results. Suitable suspensions of the substances were injected intraperitoneally, usually in two doses given within three days of tumor implantation. Tumors were measured during experiment and weighed at the end, and the results were subjected to statistical analysis. Considerable inhibition in the growth-rate of the Jensen and Walker tumors was produced by 1 : 2 : 5 : 6-dibenzanthracene, 5 : 6-cyclopenteno-1 : 2-benzanthracene, and 3 : 4-benzpyrene. Inhibition, tho~~g-llusually to a somewhat less extent, was produced also by some substances whose carcinogenic power is exceedingly weak EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES ; SPONTANEOUS ANIMAL TIJMORS ; PLANT TUMORS 4-97 (chrysene, 1 : 2-benzanthracene, 4-methyl-1 : 2-benzanthracene, 6-methyl-1 : 2-benz- anthracene) or nil (3-methyl-1 : 2-benzanthracene and 7-methyl-1 : 2-l~enzanthracene). Related non-carcinogenic hydrocarbons were completely inactive, There was thus a correlation between carcinogenicity and growth-inhibiting power, but the relationship was not quantitatively simple; 1 : 2 : 5 : 6-dibenzanthracene was more inhibitory than the more potently carcinogenic 3 : 4-benzpyrene. It may be that carciriogenicity is dependent on a certain optimal rather than on maximal inhibitory power, or that the relationship is simple I~utis disturbed by other factors, and it must be remembered, too, that carcinogenicity is ~~sr~allytested in mice.