59 



That there are difficulties to be removed from many 

 minds if Beard's teaching is to be accepted, no one knows 

 better than Beard himself. They are, however, more apparent 

 than real, they must be. 



There are the wonderfully exhaustive experiments of 

 Mendel and of de Vries, and more recently those of the Royal 

 Society's Evolution Committee on Variation. These presented 

 a difficulty to Beard that for a time appeared insurmountable. 

 But when it was recognised that the environment was constant, 

 it was seen that each of the characters dealt with was equally 

 suitable and adapted to it, and no one character could be 

 selected to the exclusion of the other. "Therefore, each would 

 " be equally favoured, and the results would come about 

 " according to the mathematical laws of probability, which 

 " Mendel and his successors found to be the case."" 



The equally complete experiments of Vochting on regenera- 

 tion, and the explaining of the well-known secondary sexual 

 characters are other difficulties that will present themselves ; 

 they will, however, vanish with further knowledge. 



Any sketch, however brief, of Beard's work would be very 

 incomplete without reference to its bearing upon the great 

 cancer problem. 



Briefly, it is as follows :— We have already noted the fact 

 that many primary germ-cells are found in places where they 

 really have no business ; that these, however, as a rule 

 degenerate and disappear, but occasionally here and there one 

 becomes encapsulated and escapes degeneration. It is in these 

 encapsulated primary germ-cells Beard discovers the origin of 

 most — if not all — neoplasms, whether bearing the name of 

 dermoid cyst, teratoma, sarcoma, or carcinoma. Although the 

 primary germ-cells of any given organism should be — they have 

 been in past ages — identical germ-cells, they have fallen on evil 

 times ; if normal development took place they would produce 

 identical normal embryos, this occasionally happens, as in the 

 case of the armadillo, where in one recorded instance seven 

 identical embryos were found."" More often, however, cases 



' John Beard. " .Morph. Coiit., etc.," Rev. Xeii. ami Psy., .March, 1904, p. 209. 



'* Dr. Beard has at present one such example in his possession, viz. : Seven identical 



foetuses in one chorion of the armadillo, Praopus hyhridus. 



