Chemotherapy of Cancer

THE introduction of potassium arsenite, or Fowler's solution, by Lissauer, at the suggestion of Rosencrantz1 in 1865 for the treatment of leukemia is usually considered the first successful attempt at cancer chemotherapy. The basic principles of chemotherapy were set down in the early twentieth century by Ehrlich. He also introduced the concepts of haptophore and toxophil to explain specific binding of drug by sites within the cell (Fig. 1) and in 1904 cured trypanosomiasis in rodents with a synthetic dye, trypan red, this being the first successful attempt at chemotherapy with a synthetic drug.2 Until increased knowledge of the intermediary . . .