23. Coley's toxin and spontaneous tumour regression

2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. S. Hayre
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Primary Tumour ◽  
Bone Cancer ◽  
Tumour Regression ◽  
Strong Reaction ◽  
Young Surgeon ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Excellent Health ◽  
Natural Response ◽  
Fever Response

William Coley, a young surgeon at New York Memorial Hospital, was traumatized by the loss of his first patient to bone cancer in 1891. He was unable to save this young patient and she succumbed to her Sarcoma within 3 months of surgery. He searched the hospital archive to learn more about Sarcoma and discovered the case of a patient with a large sarcoma who had undergone five unsuccessful surgeries over a 3 year period. This case had been determined to be hopeless. After the last of these operations, the patient became very ill from an erysipelas infection. Coley was astonished to read that after the fever broke and the patient had recovered, the tumour had vanished. Seven years later, the patient was still alive and well. Coley concluded that whatever had caused the fever must also have destroyed the cancer. Coley searched for and found this patient still in excellent health. Coley reasoned that if a chance infection could make tumours vanish, then a purposefully induced infection could do the same. The hypothesis was tested by infecting his next 10 patients with Streptococcus pyogenes to cause Erysipelas. Some of the patients were difficult to infect, some died, and some had a strong reaction and their disease regressed. Coley switched to deactivated S. pyogenes to avoid the mortality observed with the live strain. Afterxperimentation with various formulations, a combination of S pyogenes and Serratia marcescens was decided upon and became known as Coley’s Toxin. The preferred method of delivery was injection of the toxin directly into the primary tumour or metastases in increasing doses to avoid immune tolerance. Fever response in the patient was essential to imitate a naturally occurring infection and the body’s natural response. Though Coley met with success, this therapy was abandoned as chemotherapy became more popular. Hoption Cann SA, Gunn HD, van Netten JP, van Netten C. Dr William Coley and tumour regression: a place in history or in the future. Post Graduate Medical Journal 2003; 79:672-680. Hobohm U. Fever and Cancer in Perspective. Cancer Immunology & Immunotherapy 2001; 50:391-396. Grange JM, Standord JL, Stanford CA. Campbell De Morgan’s ‘Observations on cancer’, and their relevance today. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 2002 (June); 95:296-299.

‘from a musical point of view, the world is musical at any given moment’: an interview with bill fontana

2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
jøran rudi
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
The World ◽  
American Composer ◽  
Brooklyn Bridge

bill fontana is an american composer and artist who has been working with large-scale sound installations since the 1970s. in his installations he recontextualises sounds by transmitting them from one location to another, and uses the transported sounds as acoustical ‘overlay’, masking the sounds naturally occurring in the installation spaces. his installations often occur in central urban environments, and he has, for example, been commissioned in conjunction with the fifty-year anniversary of d-day (1994, paris), and the 100-year anniversary of brooklyn bridge (1983, new york city).

Review Feature: A review of An Archaeology of Socialism, by Victor Buchli. (Materializing Culture.) Oxford & New York (NY): Berg Publishers, 2000; ISBN 1-85973-212-7 hardback £44.99; ISBN 1-85973-426-X paperback £14.99; 256 pp., 26 figs.

2002 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Buchli ◽  
Mark P. Leone ◽  
Michael Shanks ◽  
Laurent Olivier ◽  
Julian Thomas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Social Engineering ◽  
The State ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Domestic Life ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Natural Response

Archaeology, defined as the study of material culture, extends from the first preserved human artefacts up to the present day, and in recent years the ‘Archaeology of the Present’ has become a particular focus of research. On one hand are the conservationists seeking to preserve significant materials and structures of recent decades in the face of redevelopment and abandonment. On the other are those inspired by social theory who see in the contemporary world the opportunity to explore aspects of material culture in new and revealing ways, and perhaps above all the central question of the extent to which material culture — be it in the form of objects or buildings — actively defines the human experience. Victor Buchli's An Archaeology of Socialism takes as its subject a twentieth-century building — the Narkofim Communal House in Moscow — and seeks to understand it in terms of domestic life and changing policies of the Soviet state during the 70 or so years since its construction. Thus Buchli's study not only concerns the meaning of material culture in a modern context, but focuses specifically on the household — or more accurately on a series of households within a single Russian apartment block. A particular interest attaches to the way in which the building was planned to encourage communal living, during a pre-Stalinist phase when the State sought to intervene directly in domestic life through architectural design and the manipulation of material culture. Subsequent political changes brought a revision of modes of living within the Narkofim apartment block, as the residents adjusted and responded to changing political and social pressures and demands. The significance of Buchli's study goes far beyond the confines of Soviet-era Moscow or indeed the archaeology of the modern world. He questions the role and potential danger of social and archaeological theory of the totalizing kind: a natural response perhaps to the experience of the Narkofim Communal House as an exercise in Soviet social engineering. He poses fascinating questions about the relation between individual households and the state ideology, and he emphasizes the role of material culture studies in reaching an understanding of these processes. In the brief essay that opens this Review Feature, Victor Buchli outlines the principal aims and conclusions of An Archaeology of Socialism. The diversity of issues that the book generates is revealed in the series of reviews which follows, touching in particular upon the ways in which routines of daily life — archaeologically visible, perhaps, through the analysis of domestic space — relate to structures of authority in society as a whole.

Maryann Overstreet, Whales, candlelight, and stuff like that: General extenders in English discourse. (Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics) Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. xii + 171. Hb. $39.95.

2002 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-134
Author(s):  
Catherine N. Ball
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Descriptive Study ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Limiting Factor ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Discourse Functions

Characterizing the discourse functions of linguistic expressions is surely one of the most difficult tasks in linguistic analysis. The starting point for any study of discourse functions is the examination of naturally occurring data; the limiting factor is the lack of well-developed theoretical frameworks for understanding language use. Still, a good descriptive study has lasting value, and empirical claims invite further analysis. Overstreet's study of the “general extenders” or something, and everything, and other members of this class makes a solid contribution on both fronts.

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