An Artificial Fever of 111.4 F. as a Means of Destroying Cancer in the Animal Body

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Abstract
During the time that I possessed a colony of tumor-bearing rats, I found that tumor No. 256, a scirrhous carcinoma of the mammary gland, was destroyed in vitro at a temperature of 111.4° F. The method of determining this point was to cut the tumor into very fine pieces, heat in Locke's solution up to a temperature of 111.4° F., and then with a small trocar implant a modicum of it into a rat. In none of the animals did any tumor grow. On the other hand, when pieces of the same tumor were implanted without having been heated, a tumor resulted in each instance. It then occurred to me to raise the temperature of the whole animal up to 111.4° F. and keep it there for twenty minutes. The etherized animal was put into a thermostat, the temperature of which had been raised to 104° F., while the atmosphere had been saturated with water vapor up to 98 per cent. This humidification was effected by hanging a number of small pieces of gauze in the chamber and immersing their lower fourths in a small basin of water on the floor of the thermostat. A thermometer was passed through an opening in the thermostat and introduced into the rectum of the animal quite close to the opening, so that the reading could be made from the outside. The temperature of the animal rose quite rapidly and uniformly, at a rate of 1° F. every three minutes. When the desired temperature (111.4° F.) was reached, it was kept nearly constant by opening and closing the door. Later it was found unnecessary to raise the temperature of the box above 100°. At this point the dissipation of heat by evaporation from the mouth and lungs was interfered with by the humid air, and the animal's temperature was elevated by its own heat production.

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