230 THE PROTEAL TREATMENT OF CANCER 



are over-burdened by an excess protein diet), and a condition that 

 at first was non-malignant will gradually grade into malignancy. 



Such a change from a benign to a malignant condition is a mat- 

 ter of common observation. As an illustration, note how ulcer 

 of the stomach tends to develop into cancer of the stomach. The 

 presence of the ulcer tends in itself to interfere with digestion and 

 assimilation, and thus to superinduce the systemic maladjustment, 

 as regards protein metabolism, which I have all along spoken of 

 as the cancerous condition. In this case, the initial cause of the 

 entire difficulty may have been the ingestion of a morsel of hot 

 food. The local abnormality here precedes the systemic one ; but 

 it should be recalled that in such a case, if the person swallowing 

 the hot morsel of food was in normal health, the original stomach 

 lesion was an ulcer of "benign" character, and its ultimate malig- 

 nancy was sequential to the general condition of protein malad- 

 justment, as in the case of every other malignant neoplasm. 



Cancer of the stomach, however, is a case apart, complicated 

 by the fact that the stomach is the channel of intake of foods to 

 nourish the body in general. With malignant neoplasms in gen- 

 eral, it is a safe presumption that there are usually deficiencies of 

 local circulation to supplement the defects of the general blood 

 supply. The uterus depleted by hemorrhage is an illustration 

 in point. 



It follows that anything which tends to facilitate the circula- 

 tion of the blood in and about the malignant neoplasm may be of 

 remedial value, provided that the enzymic conditions of the blood 

 have not shrunk to too low a level. 



So we find that a local inflammation may sometimes have cura- 

 tive effects at the early stage of development of a malignant 

 neoplasm. The cardinal symptoms of inflammation pain, red- 

 ness, and swelling are associated with an engorgement of the 

 blood vessels, and thus with an increased local capacity to deal 

 with the protein elements. The true explanation of inflammtion 

 has probably never hitherto been available as clearly as the 

 proteomorphic theory reveals it. Hitherto no one has understood 

 just why there should be an accumulation of red blood corpuscles 

 at a source of inflammation. That the process was curative or 

 beneficial for the individuals could be taken for granted, but as to 

 just what the nature of the benefit conferred might be, has hitherto 

 been only inferential. Now that the province of the red cor- 

 puscles in dealing with the end-products of protein metabolism 

 is understood, the benefits of the inflammation induced, for 

 example, by bacterial onslaught are clearly explicable. The 

 province of the red blood corpuscle is to cooperate with the white 

 corpuscles by carrying away and further proteolyzing the later 

 products of protein decompounding. 



