He was deeply moved by the death of patients due to widespread metastatic bone sarcoma. He combed the scant literature of his day to find ideas about what might be an effective treatment for cancer and found a few reports suggesting that having an infection might cause tumor regression. From there he developed a theory for treatment.

He began to inject patients with bacteria and bacterial products and noticed that some tumors disappeared. Note the word "some." Coley's work was often criticized, and, at times, he was completely dismissed by the scientific community. This occurred in part because his methods of treatment and patient follow-up were not consistent and due to simple skepticism. Thanks to recent discoveries in immunology, we are now convinced that some of Coley's observations were correct.

One of his first patients was a 17-year-old girl who had a swelling in her hand which was diagnosed as a malignant bone tumor...a Ewing's sarcoma in her metacarpal. In a desperate effort to save this patient he amputated her forearm. But she died of widespread metastases within ten weeks. This rapid spread of a lethal cancer had a profound effect on Coley. That's when he looked for background. He learned about a patient who, 7 years previously, had an inoperable malignant tumor in his neck that seemed to disappear after he developed an extreme skin infection called erysipelas caused by a streptococcal organism. Coley personally searched for this patient and found him, a German immigrant named Stein, with no evidence of residual cancer.

Mr. Stein's seemingly miraculous cure contrasted with the teenager's rapid death inspired Coley to look for other patients who had cancer remission due to a concurrent bacterial infection. He was aware of anecdotal theories of the beneficial effect of fever on malignant tumors. For example, Diedier noted in 1725 that patients with syphilis developed very few malignant tumors. Sir James Paget also mentioned that an infection may cause a regression in certain tumors. In 1867, a German physician reported that a malignant tumor had disappeared when the patient contracted erysipelas. Twenty years later that German doctor intentionally injected a cancer patient with the streptococcus organism to induce erysipelas, and he noticed the shrinkage of the malignancy. In an era when there was very little published medical information, Coley found 47 cases in the literature documenting the beneficial effect of infections on tumors.

For this morning's purpose there is no reason to go further. This story illustrates the lengthy and sometimes whimsical process by which science progresses. There are people who believe that working with your hands in soil--as in farming or gardening--helps to stimulate the immune system by exposing your body to infectious challenges. I'm sure there are others who dismiss this theory. It happens to be a theory that makes logical sense to me, and I've read enough about it to believe it is possible.

The article says, "Even when the immune system is aided by immune-modulating drugs, cancer remains a wily adversary: cancer cells can dress up in a clever disguise by cloaking themselves in clumps of platelets (blood clotting platelets) as they travel through the bloodstream. Since the immune system does not ordinarily attack its own platelets, the camouflage provides safe passage to the cancer cells as they migrate to distant parts of the body."

Let's comment a little about this wording. Cancer cells are not intelligent little criminals that actually come up with disguises. That's just fancy writing. Strategies that are effective in nature aren't planned, they are the result of natural selection. If they work, they remain active and ongoing. If they don't work, they die out.

But the good guys in the body are also honing their effectiveness through natural trial and error. "Built-in defenses," the article says, "are usually able to prevent the development of many cancer situations." This defense is will known in the cancer research community... The body's cells can recognize imbalances in their own internal circuitry, and one of the most frightening imbalances is when cells begin to grow wildly and unnaturally, as happens in tumor growth and cancer. When an imbalance is recognized, the cells have evolved a mechanism for self destructions. In other words, many cells have a mechanism built into their chemistry that causes them to commit suicide if they start growing too fast. One of the names for this process is apoptosis. This has the effect of preventing runaway growth from going beyond a certain very small point.

Perhaps a late stage remission--the article suggests--is a body's discovery of how to apply this tactic even in an advanced situation. It doesn't happen often, but when it does it seems miraculous. It would be nice to understand this, but for now it is only theoretical. No mechanism for this not been identified and it's hard to study because there are so few advanced spontaneous remissions.

The article also talks about how personality, prayer, and other factors have been studied as possible triggers for either the development of cancer or spontaneous remission. It cites a book by Caryle Hirshberg called Spontaneous Remission: An Annotated Bibliography, as the most comprehensive review available of information on spontaneous remission. A term is used--Noetic Sciences--which relates to mind-body connections.

A story is told about Alice Epstein who says she had a cancer-prone personality. The symptoms she lists were depression, difficulty expressing anger, and suppression of her own needs in other to please others. Some psychologists refer to these as cancer-prone characteristics. On one of these calls in the past year I quoted some startling statistics about there relationship between leadership, followership, and disease. People in positions of leadership--even under intense stress--have a MUCH lower incidence of heart attack and stroke as people who have less conventional stress in their lives but are not leaders. I argued that a person who has a followers way of life can immediately become a leader through our business. And perhaps that is a subtle new reason to participate seriously in Vollara.

The article points out that cause and effect can easily be confused. We see that a lot in nutrition and weight loss testimonies, and I caution my listeners all the time to be careful about reading too much into a story you hear. We love testimonials and they contain great lessons, but we can't generalize and insist that everyone else will have the same results that one person had.

The article reminds us of a factor called "survivor effect." When you hear a great cancer survival story, remember that you heard that story only because the person was a survivor. If 1,000 other people tried the same "miracle therapy" and died, their stories are never heard.

In summary, the article says, doctors and scientists do agree that our minds clearly have some effect on our physiology and health. They give some examples. When frightened (clearly a mind thing), our hearts race, our palms sweat, and our pupils dilate. Stress can cause changes in the function of the immune system. Here is a dramatic statistic that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Newly bereaved people who recently lost a husband or wife have a 53-61% increased risk of death as compared to people of their same age who are not bereaved. This is no surprise. Many of us know such a case from personal experience.

As to exotic therapies, "When patients do better," the article says, "there is a temptation for doctors--in both alternative and conventional medicine--to take credit for the positive outcomes." Those of us who sell nutrition products have the same tendency.

And one final thought. They use the term "medical mischief." Thanks to more advanced equipment we can now detect problems earlier than before. On the surface this looks like a good thing. Many times it is. But there is another possibility. A lot of problems that are detected very early "might" have been taken care of naturally by the body's own responses. In other words, there might be millions of very early spontaneous remissions going on in our population. Early diagnosis of a problem can sometimes lead to early treatment that could, in theory, be more harmful than leaving well enough alone.

As with all human and medical issues, there is a lot of complexity at play. I hope this short training segment will be stimulating to your brain. That's how I responded to the article when I read it.