On the Track

A plain, red brick clinic, called the "Jimmy Fund Building," was opened at Children's Hospital in Boston last week, and the first patients trooped in for examinations and checkups. All were boys & girls for whom, until about five years ago, medical science could offer little or no comfort. They were victims of generalized cancers such as leukemia (in the blood stream) or the spreading type of Hodgkin's disease (in the lymph nodes). Now there is at least good reason for hoping that their lives can be made both brighter and longer.

The youngsters got their first boost in the waiting room. Thanks to the Variety Club of New England, one of the "angels" financing the new building, there was a layout of electric trains, a television set, a miniature merry-go-round, and a rack of dolls. If a little girl got attached to a doll, she could keep it; there were more where it came from. Corridor walls were covered with such Disney favorites as Pinocchio and Snow White.

Switch the Antagonists. Even in the examining and treatment rooms there were bowls of lollipops. But here, the serious business of fighting childhood cancer was under way.

Once, X rays were the doctors' only weapon against these inoperable cancers and were effective in only a few types of cases. In the last five years, Boston's Dr. Sidney Farber and a team of assistants have been getting encouraging results with new drugs. One of the first to show promise was nitrogen mustard (a deadly poison developed in World War II for chemical warfare). Newer and better, Dr. Farber believes, are the awkwardly named "folk acid antagonists." These, like ACTH and cortisone, are most often effective against the leukemias.

In most cases, one type of drug is effective for a while and then its benefit wears off. So the doctors switch to another. Later they may switch back again. This way, the life-prolonging properties of all the drugs seem to be cumulative. One little girl has lived 34 months after the onset of acute leukemia. A boy has been kept going for 35 months; despite a bad relapse last fall, he now goes to school and does figure skating. Under older methods of treatment, both would have been dead within a year.

Back on the Farm. "Jimmy," for whom the clinic and research building was named, is a New England farm boy. When he first saw Dr. Farber, the diagnosis was dismal: lymph-node cancer. Previous results with nitrogen mustard had been spotty, so Jimmy got three (out of the seven) folic acid antagonists. Today he is back doing chores on the family farm and feeling fine. His cancer shows no sign of activity.

No one, least of all the cautious Dr. Farber, believes that a cure for these children's cancers is in sight. Even now, one-third of all leukemia victims fail to respond to any treatment. But Dr. Farber believes that he and his colleagues are on the right track. To keep them going, the Variety Club (composed largely of theater managers and entertainers) and the Boston Braves have raised $600,000 through radio appeals and collections in theaters and ball parks; they plan to keep on until the Jimmy Fund Building is paid for, and Jimmy's companions in misfortune can be cured.

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