In 1925 Carrel (1) published an account of experiments in which he claimed to have produced fibro-sarcomata in fowls by injection of a non-specific chemical substance, i.e., arsenious acid. His method consisted of inoculating a mixture of arsenious acid (in dilutions of 1 in 100,000 to 1 in 250,000) and chicken embryonic pulp into the breast muscles of chickens. He obtained tumors which he says were fibro-sarcomata and which killed the chickens in from 17 to 35 days. Metastases were found in the lungs, liver and spleen. Direct transplants of this tumor tissue into other chickens gave rise to sarcomata which killed these chickens in from 9 to 17 days. Berkefeld filtrates of the extract of such tumors, when inoculated into other chickens, killed, in from 19 to 30 days.

Carrel's summary, translated into English is: “In summing up, arsenious acid has produced in a few days, in the fowl, the transformation of normal tissues into fibro-sarcomata which contain a filterable principle analogous to the agent of Rous. It seems then, that in this case, as in that of the very malignant tar sarcomata, we have discovered the presence of an important phenomenon; the formation, by the tissues under the influence of a non-specific chemical substance, of a principle which resembles a virus, acts in a specific fashion on the cells of a certain type, and reproduces itself indefinitely in the presence of these cells.”

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