50 years ago

Theoretically, cancer therapeutic agents should be able to differentiate between malignant and normal human cells and should be more toxic to the malignant cells ... Early experiments with guinea pig sera gave the unexpected finding that leukaemic lymphocytes were frequently more sensitive to inactivated (56 °C, 30 min.) than to fresh sera ... [H]uman leukaemic lymphocytes were sensitive to toxic factors in normal rabbit sera and in inactivated guinea pig sera. The rabbit sera usually killed the leukaemic lymphocytes in a few hours by 'fixation' and killed normal lymphocytes in a few days by intranuclear vacuolization.

Also:

This Slimming Business. By Prof. John Yudkin — [An] excellent account of nutrition that should enable the non-scientific reader to appreciate the reasons for the condemnation of much of the published nonsense on dieting.

From Nature 13 September 1958.

100 years ago

The Influence of Alcohol and other Drugs on Fatigue. By Dr. W. H. R. Rivers — [T]he author details the results obtained in an experimental research on the influence of certain drugs—caffeine, alcohol, cocaine, strychnine, and tobacco—on muscular and mental fatigue ... Caffeine in moderate doses (about 0.3 gram of the citrate) increases the capacity for both muscular and mental work, the stimulating action persisting for some time, and not being followed by any depressant action. Excessive doses, however ... are followed by a depressant action so marked that the drug in such circumstances becomes an accelerator of fatigue ... Alcohol in small doses (5–10 c.c.) seems to produce little effect, in larger doses (20–40 c.c.) the action was variable; in a subject not used to alcohol, sweating, giddiness, and other symptoms often ensued ... The capacity for mental work on the whole seemed to be lowered.

From Nature 17 September 1908.