282 THE PROTEAL TREATMENT OF CANCER 



explained as a mere incidental result of general excitation of the 

 blood-forming mechanism. 



It is noteworthy in this connection that German clinicians (for 

 example Von Domarus) cite an increase of large mononu clears 

 as a typical feature of the secondary stage of a so-called "leu- 

 cocyte-curve" of infections, such increase following the primary 

 advance and recedence of the polynuclears, and preceding the 

 advance of the small lymphocytes. Conceivably this macrocytosis 

 is to provide for the hydrolysis of the protein products with which 

 the blood has been flooded by the disintegration of the micro- 

 phages (polynuclears) with their increment of partially digested 

 bacteria. Such at any rate, might be a plausible explanation of 

 the later aspects of the "leucocyte curve" if the proteomorphic 

 thesis as -to the proteolytic activities of large and small lympho- 

 cytes is accepted. 



In general, it would appear that a relative monocytosis be- 

 tokens a non-bacterial protein invasion as clearly as a neutrophile 

 increase betokens a bacterial infection. Probably the diagnostic 

 value of the monocytosis is not less than that of the polyneu- 

 closis, although hitherto quite unrecognized. 



Further pursuance of the subject here, however, would carry 

 us too far afield from the present theme, which concerns malig- 

 nant neoplasms rather than general infections. Let us again 

 take up the analysis of the results of animal experimentation in 

 the cancer field, with an eye to the correlation of these results 

 with our own clinical and laboratory experience with cancer in 

 the human subject. 



CART BEFORE HORSE 



In considering various of the observations above cited, and 

 numerous others in the literature of transplantable tumors in rats 

 and mice, one is led to reflect on the power of preconception and 

 the difference that may result from a changed point of view. 



If a person who had seen automobiles moving about the streets, 

 but who now for the first time saw a horse and carriage, were to 

 describe what he had seen, he would doubtless tell of an auto- 

 mobile that pushed before it a strange animal. He might even 

 note with amusement that the animal was obliged to move very 

 rapidly to keep ahead of the vehicle that tends to overrun it. 

 Probably he would be led to query why it would not be more con- 

 venient to tie the animal behind the vehicle and thus avoid the 

 danger of injuring it. 



Now such a description of the locomotion of the horse-drawn 

 vehicle would, in my opinion, be strictly comparable to the descrip- 

 tions that have appeared in the literature of cancer in connection 

 with the question of the transplantation of tumors and the giving 



