Comparison of the Effects of Various Salts Upon Cancer Cells and Normal Cells

In the course of another investigation (1) it was noticed that tumor cells suspended in a considerable volume of physiological saline solution and incubated for three hours at from 36° to 40° C. seldom gave rise to a tumor on transplantation into a species of rats susceptible to this growth, although incubation at the same temperature and for the same period, in the absence of saline solution, hardly damaged the tumor cells at all; from 80 per cent to 100 per cent of tumors resulted from their inoculation. At ice-box temperature (2) and at room temperature tumor cells remain unaltered for a considerable time when merely moistened with Locke9s solution. It is known, of course, that solutions of single salts exert a deleterious action on the cell, even though the same salts, in balanced physiological solution, are more or less inocuous. Thus the Na ion acting alone increases the dispersion of the colloids of the cell membrane, while Ca ions diminishes it. The manner of action of K ions on colloids intra vitam is not yet understood. Saline solution 0.9 per cent, and Ringer9s solution act dysionically upon the colloids of cell protoplasm. Injected into the arteries of the kidney they cause cloudy swelling of the renal epithelium (3) and the salt solution of the physiologist (0.6 per cent NaCl without KCl and CaCl 2 ) produces a cloudy swelling of the heart, recognizable macroscopically, without any microscopic evidences of parenchymatous inflammation. Cramer (4) has investigated the effect of sodium and calcium ions on tumor cells by suspending them in isosmotic solutions of sodium chloride and calcium chloride. Subsequent transplantation showed a very distinct inhibition of growth on the part of those suspended in calcium chloride solution. The growth of the cells which had been suspended in sodium chloride solution showed, in comparison with control cells transplanted without any experimental interference, a slight diminution, referable in part if not entirely, to the additional experimental manipulations involved.