234 SYMB10GENES1S 



are being ingested. Just as great quantities of ore have 

 to be treated to yield a trace of radium, so, with morbid 

 appetites, large amounts of food have to be metabolised 

 in order to obtain a modicum of the substances indispensably 

 required, all of which goes on at the expense of evolution. 

 Experiments have shown that rats fed on vitamineless 

 diet will feed as voraciously as those fed on a vitamineous 

 diet. No doubt the craving for what is really wanted (i.e., 

 the ideal vitamine-content of the "love- foods," missing in 

 other fare) in many cases induces a great deal of voracious- 

 ness and of over-feeding with further pathological results. 



The general habits of in-feeders, moreover, do not involve 

 exertions systematic enough to lead to progressive physio- 

 logical development ; they only involve casual and non- 

 reciprocal exertion, or as in the case of the Torpedo, only 

 casual "explosions." That there are such pathogenetic 

 possibilities of "specialisation" is interesting, but the trans- 

 formations are not permanently satisfactory and eventually 

 lead to failures. The monstrous appearance of the Torpedo 

 and the generally huge size of the electric organ are 

 significant symptoms of abnormality and of biological anti- 

 thesis.* 



These electric phenomena, be it noted, are manifested by 

 animals which practise in-feeding, and the electric organs are 

 used for killing prey or assisting in its capture. 



The fact noted by Spencer that substances, such as 

 morphia and strychnia, " which are known to be powerful 

 nervous stimulants," greatly increase the violence and rapidity 



* In my opinion such monstrosity represents one form of nemesis resulting from 

 an in-feeding diathesis and is well on the road to physiological and biological isola- 

 tion and to extinction as instanced by the monstrous marine reptiles and the heavy 

 flightless birds of old and the Cetacea. of the present. All well-made flsh weigh, in 

 equal bulk, just as much as water (Houssay>. When very sluggish and parasitic, 

 however, they are badly shaped, too long or too short, and decidedly heavier than 

 others or the water. Although in the intermediate or degenerate stage some preda- 

 ceous flsh are good swimmers and comparatively well shaped, many, as we have 

 seen, are subject to a reproductive nemesis, whilst a more purely biological nemesis 

 becomes emphatic from recent helminthological research (Dr. VV. Xicholl) showing 

 an enormous incidence of parasitic infection in the intestines (81^ with parasites of 

 over 50 different species flukes, tapeworms, threadworms, etc.). We shall presently 

 see that such infection is apt to impair the "hosts" bio-chemical system and to 

 stimulate pathological increase of size. 



