No Nobel Prize

The U. S. knows very little of Dr. Johannes Fibiger, rector of the University of Copenhagen; at 59 an authority on tuberculosis and cancer, 1924 Jung Prizer for cancer. Son and son-in-law of doctors, he passed his medical examinations in 1890 and the next year conducted a large research laboratory at Sygehus Garrison, Denmark.

In 1908 he went to Washington for the first international tuberculosis conference held in the U. S. (The second took place last month; TIME, Oct. 18.) Since then he has been whipping his mind to and fro in an effort to find some cause for cancer. Once he thought that this disease was caused by a germ because he found the same germ in cockroaches and cancerous rats that ambled about a Copenhagen sugar refinery. He has modified his views since then.

For his studies on cancer especially, for his pathological work in general, Dr. Fibiger was reported, last week, to be the 1926 Nobel Prizer in medicine. That would carry $40,000 in addition to the fame.

The report was more than premature, for the Caroline Institute of Stockholm, which allots the medical prize, announced immediately that during 1926, as during 1925, there was no work anywhere in the world distinguished enough to warrant its award.