THE RELATIONS OF PATHOLOGY 119 



lesions and their functional and structural consequences. Blasto- 

 mycosis and paratyphoid fever are brilliant examples of "new dis- 

 eases" recently established as the result of purely morphologic and 

 microbiologic methods of study in fields long diligently explored. 

 In trypanosomiasis and piroplasmosis of man and of animals we 

 have other examples of interesting diseases for the recent know- 

 ledge of the existence of which as etiologic entities we are indebted 

 chiefly to clinical observation and morphologic studies of the blood. 

 These facts indicate that microbic etiology may yet be forced to 

 yield up hitherto carefully guarded secrets to more or less familiar 

 methods of new modifications thereof. 



Great interest has been awakened in the recent determined effort 

 by Councilman and his associates to solve by these methods the 

 etiology of variola, the final proof of the success or failure of which 

 must be left to more discriminating forms of microbiologic research. 



In pathology purely morphologic methods have surely as great 

 an importance in establishing etiologic relationships and as a means 

 of orientation in various forms of investigation as they have in 

 unraveling the intricate connection between structure and function. 

 Progress in the domains of microscopic pathological morphology 

 and progress in normal morphology will always be mutually helpful 

 because pathological cellular changes -- necrosis, necrobiosis, de- 

 generations, and proliferations are probably largely identical with 

 normal cytomorphosis, being abnormal only as to time and place. 

 A recent morphological observation of great interest is that by 

 Bashford and Murray of a process of conjugation in cancer cells. 

 These observers found in cancer cells nuclear changes similar to 

 those by which sexual cells are prepared for fertilization and also 

 fusion of nuclei equivalent to the process of fertilization known as 

 conjugation. This discovery (if confirmed) will help to turn the 

 search for the causative factor in cancer directly to the very pro- 

 cesses in the cells themselves, a direction indicated already by the 

 singular fact that cancer always "breeds true," and that it is trans- 

 plantable only within the species in which it originates, and that it 

 behaves as an independent organism. Undoubtedly the newer 

 methods of study of micro-chemical reactions in normal cytology 

 will prove valuable also in pathological cytology. Perchance this 

 synthesis of morphological and chemical methods in time may give 

 us some insight into the normal relations and time-sequence of 

 chemical reactions in biological processes, normal as well as abnormal. 



It proved to be an auspicious day both for chemistry and medi- 

 cine when Pasteur conceived his biological theory of alcoholic fer- 

 mentation. Ludwig's prophecy of forty years ago that chemical 

 physiology would largely prove a study of catalytic reactions has 

 come true, and the cell is now no longer considered as a simple strike- 



