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Jules Hirsch, MD

JAMA. 2006;296:1518-1520.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Experiences with chemotherapy for cancer have led to an enrichment in knowledge of the molecular basis for neoplastic disease; in turn, advances in molecular genetics have opened new approaches to cancer chemotherapy. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the first report of a trial of cancer chemotherapy, an event closely related to the development of chemical poisons for use in warfare. Clinical investigators were able to derive some good for mankind from the agony and pain resulting from chemical agents created primarily to destroy humans.

A New Therapeutic Possibility

In 1946, Goodman and colleagues¹ described how they (all leaders in pharmacology and hematology) had joined in a war-time study of the effects of poison gas on lymphomas. Their findings had not been made public earlier because of the cloak of secrecy in World War II; therefore, surgery and radiation therapy had been the mainstays of cancer treatment. Their dramatic publication . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Author Affiliation: Rockefeller University, New York, NY.

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