ON SPECIFIC THERAPEUTICS. 67 



I fail to understand how von Dungern can 

 think himself justified in doubting the correctness 

 of this explanation, on the ground that hitherto 

 the experimental proof of a permanent increase 

 of cellular avidity by increased nutrition has not 

 been adduced. I have never asserted that we 

 can by artificial means permanently raise the 

 cellular avidity. Such a power would obviously 

 involve the possibility of artificial tumour pro- 

 duction. There is therefore no contradiction, 

 as von Dungern imagines, between my views 

 and the facts that by artificial hyperaemia better 

 nutrition is obtained, and that, after removal of 

 large parts of the body, e.g., amputation at the 

 thigh, the hypernutrition of the individual is 

 evidenced, not by the proliferation of func- 

 tionating epithelial cells, but by increase of 

 the adipose tissue. From the fact that the 

 increased avidity causes an increased attraction 

 of nutritive material, it does not follow inversely 

 that copious nutrition must increase the 

 avidity. An indirectly injurious effect of more 

 highly avid cells on less avid ones can there- 

 fore only become evident, if the body does not 



1907, No. 23, p. 718), which show that pregnancy very 

 often produces a retarding influence on the growth of such 

 tumours. 



