Body Temperature and Tumor Growth

In the spring of 1924 the effect of fever upon transplanted neoplasms was investigated in a number of mice and rats because it is known that a rather large proportion of the spontaneous cures recorded in man have followed acute febrile attacks—104°-105° for forty-eight to ninety-six hours without remission (Rohdenburg, 1). It seemed at the time not impossible that the chemical activity responsible for neoplastic growth should be adversely affected by temperatures which would not seriously damage the remainder of the body, and there was some encouragement in the fact that Rohdenburg and Prime (2) had been able to inflict the same amount of damage upon animal tumors by diathermy in vivo with low degrees of heat (41°) as with high (46°), provided only that the former were applied for sufficiently long periods. As the outcome was entirely negative, the experiment was not reported at the time. Now, however, that short-wave therapy has come into prominence, and there exists some doubt whether these waves exert effects over and above those due to mere heating of the tissues (Reiter, 3), or whether their action is to be ascribed entirely to the raised temperature (Schereschewsky, 4, bibliography), a short note may be of some value.