178 DIVISIONS INDUCED IN LYMPHOCYTES 



are called the homotype maiotic divisions. These 

 authors, however, believe that it is not only cancer- 

 cells which divide by maiotic divisions, but that certain 

 other tissue-cells also normally proliferate by maiotic 

 reproduction, especially some cells of the testis, and 

 the "wandering" cells of the body. 



In March, 1909 we discussed the problem of the 

 causation of cell-division with Professor Harvey Gibson, 

 who suggested that we might try the effect of nuclein 

 on cells; and he founded this idea on the well-known 

 fact that in the sexual generation of the normal alter- 

 nations of generations of plants the nuclei have only 

 half the number of chromosomes which are present in 

 the nuclei of the asexual generation, and that what is 

 normal in the plant appears to resemble what is patho- 

 logical in the human being's cancer-cells. It is thus 

 suggestive that a cancerous growth might be looked 

 upon as consisting of abnormally induced "gameto- 

 phytic" or sexual tissue. Professor Gibson, with this 

 in his imind, suggested that it might be possible by 

 some means to induce the nuclei deficient in nuclein 

 to absorb more, and so get back to the normal somatic 

 condition. Farmer and others have shown that it is 

 possible to induce such changes in the tissue of ferns, 

 and for many months one of us (C. J. M.), acting on this 

 knowledge, treated some cancer patients with nuclein, 

 which was made by Professor Reynolds Green, but 

 without proof that it conferred benefit. We, however, 

 determined to experiment with it on individual cells. 1 



1 Quoted from a paper, "A Report on Cancer Research," by Dr. Macalister 

 and myself, in The British MedicalJournal, October 23, 1909. 



