Microbiology and cancer therapy; a review.

The use of micro-organisms and their products as possible therapeutic agents in the control of cancer had its beginning in the latter part of the nineteenth century, coinciding with the embryonic achievements of the science of bacteriology. The rapid advances in the field of antibiotics during the past 12 years have inspired new hope that the search among biological systems will disclose a chemical agent which will exert a destructive ef fect upon neoplastic growth without seriously affecting normal cells.