Immunotherapy of Cancer

Control of cancer by immunologic methods was first suggested by physicians who observed, more than a century ago, that advanced cancer occasionally underwent total regression after acute bacterial infection. Coley presented a substantial study of the effects of bacteria or their products on cancer, and there is little doubt that the bacterial products that came to be known as Coley's toxin were in some cases highly effective.¹ This form of therapy later fell into disuse, in part because of high hopes raised by the introduction of radiotherapy, and afterward chemotherapy, which were more predictable and comprehensible, and whose mechanisms seemed . . .