RIORITY for the successful transplantation P of tumors is often credited to Hanau, who on November 28, 1888, inoculated two rats with a metastasis of a vulvar epidermoid carcinoma of a rat and observed growth and metastases of the neoplasm in the two recipients. T h e findings were published in 1889 in an eighteen-page article, on the first page of which Hanau refers to two previous investigators-Novinsky, in 1876, and Wehr, in 1888-who had successfully transplanted tumors in dogs.
Between 1889 and 1902 at least four independent investigators showed that rat and mouse tumorq could be transplanted. During the same period, at least three other authors reported successful transplantation of venereal sarcoma in dogs. T h e transmission by sexual contact and the lack of a human counterpart created a division of opinion regarding the nature of the canine venereal sarcoma, although the work of Sticker, Beebe and Ewing, and others leaves no doubt hut that it is a neoplastic process like other mammalian tumors. This was established, however, after the work of Jensen, Loeb and Borrel revealed the full potential of rodent material. T h e sway of the mouse and rat in cancer research left little room for interest in the canine tumors, (For references and a full account of this period, see Woglom, especially pages 53 to 57 and 227 to 236. For a more recent summary of the canine venereal sarcoma, see Stubbs and Furth.)
These historical developments, however, do riot wholly explain the gradual submergence of Novinsky's contribution. In the writings that mention his work at all, reference is limited to his two-page preliminary report that was published simultaneously in Russian and in German.3~ 5 This is incomplete and leaves much to be desired as evidence of succcssful transplantation of tumor. T h e full report, which presents the complete details and impresses the reader by the rtholarly and thorough approach to and performance of the re-From thc R'ational Cancer Institute, National Insti-