204 PHYSIC 



dynamic parallelism, we have an ideal nidus for the de- 

 velopment of bacterial organisms ; it is not, therefore, 

 required that embryonic cellular organisms, belated amid 

 the physiologically active cell communities of the adult 

 and ageing body, should become the hosts for the develop- 

 ment and growth of the generic cancer organisms, neither 

 is it necessary nor consistent with the laws of nutrition 

 for their evolution into malignant growths, that other 

 formative materio-dynamic agencies should come into 

 existence beyond those already existent and active in all 

 developmental processes, whether physiological or patho- 

 logical, evolutionary or involutionary, to initiate and per- 

 petuate the fell process of cancerous conversion, or per- 

 version, of healthy texture into that of usurping malignancy 

 and destruction, with all the train of consequences 

 entailed. Here we may find in the disturbed relationships 

 of the dual nervatures in their related nutritive and forma- 

 tive functional roles in the structures affected, the materio- 

 dynamic factors to work out, with the aid of involutionary 

 tissue elements, the whole sequence of morbid events, 

 from inception to close, from the primary invasion of 

 healthy structure until its complete disappearance in and 

 incorporation with the altogether foreign elements of 

 malignant disease. All the characteristics and factors of 

 malignant disease are, or may be, therefore, purloined, 

 so to speak, from the innocent materio-dynamic belongings 

 of the physiologically healthy body, and converted or per- 

 verted into those of the pathological occupancy of that body. 

 Thus the characters of malignancy are impressed on 

 physiologically normal, but, it may be, adynamic, struc- 

 ture, and become the ultimate pathological and lineal 

 representatives of that normal condition in structure and 

 function, each and every structure so affected, giving a 

 character to the malignancy in accordance with its own 

 structure and function, and transferring its materio- 

 dynamic methods to it to become the pathological pattern 

 of procedure until frequently all trace of the original 

 becomes merged in its malign counterpart. Natural, if 

 not normal, structure, therefore, is the matrix in which 

 cancer begins to develop and on which it thrives, the 

 materies morbi becoming fixed, and converting to its own 



