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But still the explanation for why the cancer germ __ tuberculosis that passed through a filter caused showed so many different forms was elusive. Hodgkin's cancer." This was subsequently supported in Virginia Livingston tried as she might, but part of her — studies by Beinhauer, Mellon and Fisher.'" Mellon problem in obtaining an American validation of her — prophetically warned that tuberculosis could assume multi-shaped cancer germ lay firmly entrenched in the _ both its characteristic red acid-fast forms as well as its istory of medicine, especially in the constantly changing _ blue nonacid-fast forms, indistinguishable from common ield of microbiology. Louis Pasteur could handle being —_ germs such as staphylococci, fungi and corynebacteria, quickly rushed off a Paris Academy of Sciences podiumto and that this would surely perplex modern escape harsh reaction to his suggestion that children's —_ microbiologists. milk be boiled first before drinking, but he could not When the American medical establishment chose to olerate his rival Antoine Béchamp's statement that a ignore these studies, Alexander-Jackson warned that a so- single bacterium could assume many, many forms. called cure for TB could be short-lived, as classical TB However, on his deathbed, Pasteur apparently changed __ rods, for the moment gone underground as a nonacid- is mind when he said "The terrain is everything'— fast form, could resurface one day and spring back meaning that the culture or milieu which the bacteria towards destruction. The medical orthodoxy had no grew on or in could change their shape serious time for Alexander-Jackson or or characteristics. But it was too late, her discoveries, but this would not and even today most conventiona disturb her as long as she focused on microbiologists deny the existence o tuberculosis and its cousin, leprosy. such form-changing (or pleomorphic) Virginia Livingston But when she shifted her focus towards germs. Livingston's cancer germ, the Dr Robert Koch, “the father o tried as she might, orthodoxy would move to destroy her. bacteriology" and discoverer o She simply posed too great a threat. tuberculosis, could have helped. When but part of he first worked with anthrax bacteria, her problem In Recognition at last he noticed that anthrax's classical rod mi By December 1950, Livingston, who shapes became thread-like inside the obtaining an would go on to write over 17 peer- blood of laboratory mice, and then, American reviewed articles by the end of her after multiplying, they changed again . Q career, wrote together with Alexander- into the same assumed spore-like validation of her Jackson and four other prominen forms that he later documented in researchers what still stands as a tuberculosis as well. milestone on the infectious nature Aware of what she faced, yet of cancer." multi-shaped cancer germ lay undismayed, Virginia Livingston firmly entrenched At the American Medica methodically went about proving . . Association's 1953 New York cancer's true cause. First in her in the history of convention, participants were line of attack were the long- Medicine... particularly riveted by an exhibi of Livingston's cancer germ, live. On the TV screen above, the cancer germs seemed indestructible, surviving a five-day suspected and well-publicised tumour agents of Rous, Bittner and Shope. By photomicrographs, Livingston and her group demonstrated acid-fast experience of intolerable hea mycobacterial forms in each of from closed-circuit microscopy. these so-called "viral" cancers. These included the famed The press, muzzled by Sloan-Kettering's head, Dr Rous chicken sarcoma. Cornelius Rhoads, was not allowed to interview Early on, Livingston had decided that she needed help __ Livingston or report on this exhibit.'* in validating her cancer germ, and nobody knew the As Livingston and Alexander-Jackson's work on the shapes and staining capacities of mycobacteria-related cancer germ became more and more convincing, germs better than bacteriologist Dr Eleanor Alexander- — opponents of their work surfaced and became more and Jackson of Cornell. As far back as 1928, Alexander- — more vocal. Jackson had discovered unusual and, up to that point, Yet with recognition came visitors. Dr George Clark, a unrecognised forms of the TB bacillus, including its pathologist from Scranton, Pennsylvania, told Livingston filterable forms. that he had cultured Dr Thomas Glover's famed cancer By 1951, Alexander-Jackson was considered the expert — germ from human cancer and developed metastasising TB microbiologist at Cornell. tumours in animals from it. Clark assured Livingston that In the same year, another American, Dr H. C. Sweany, | Glover was onto the same bacterial pathogen that she proposed that both the granular and other forms of _ was. Virginia Livingston tried as she might, but part of her problem in obtaining an American cancer germ lay firmly entrenched in the history of medicine... was. NEXUS ¢ 37 validation of her multi-shaped DECEMBER 2009 - JANUARY 2010 www.nexusmagazine.com