CIRCULATION 559 



incidence and progress of disease, we therefore claim that 

 we have here, based on histological data, a means by 

 which we may more scientifically diagnose many ailments 

 of the most profound order, and be enabled to direct their 

 treatment on less empirical lines than we now are wont 

 to do. 



Moreover, we think it would not be too much were we 

 to claim a large portion of the group of new growths, or 

 tumours, as examples of faulty tissue linkage between the 

 two great systems of innervation, where, and by which, 

 the normal formative energies of the great organic or vital 

 machinery are directed along new and strange lines with 

 the quite natural, but pathological, result, that the natural 

 formative processes are followed by new and strange tissue 

 forms and structures, which are generally known by the 

 names of the normal textures in which they originate, or 

 from which the formative impulses are derived, and from 

 whose formative plasma they obtain their support, material 

 and dynamic. By an extension of this theory of the 

 origin of disease, or pathological change, to the class of 

 tumours known as malignant or cancerous, we have but to 

 assume that further pathological changes are effected by 

 the addition of fresh morbid, or intensified pathogenic 

 formative, impulses and pabulum to the specific work of 

 the already discordant elements, and that a consequent 

 continued further departure from the normal character of 

 the original structures involved takes place, during which 

 it may be that every trace of the original structures is 

 destroyed, and an absolutely foreign, but pathologico- 

 physiological, structural element alone is left to occupy 

 the tissue spaces of the hapless host and to destroy its life. 



We furthermore would add, that that parallelism, or 

 synchronicity, which should characterise the cessation of 

 function, and the removal of disused structure, is alone 

 possible when the circulatory ways are " straight," and 

 where the vis medicatrix nature can effectually assert itself 

 in the maintenance of " a clear bill of physiological health," 

 by a dynamic superiority of influence over all interloping 

 pathogenic agencies, be they physical, chemical, or bacterial, 

 or misdirected formative impulses, and consequent neo- 

 plastic developments. 



