"PATHOLOGIA PHYSIOLOGIAM ILLUSTRAT' 155 



interferes either with the inheritance of the products of past chemical 

 changes or with the effects of present ones, interferes with the develop- 

 ment of those tissues, so that they remain on the same plane as their 

 racial ancestors, and enjoy the same powers of reproduction. 



This, however, is still far too physical an account of the arrest 

 of development such as usually leads up to the incidence of 

 tumours. We are merely enabled to see that there must have 

 been some chemical disturbance, some interference with the 

 " normal " bio-chemistry sometime and somewhere. Evidently 

 there was at one time an orderly chemical evolution, whatever 

 it was that constituted the " order." 



The effect of the mysterious disturbance evidently is to 

 abrogate a previous wholesome restraint of cell-reproduction 

 and to restore to the incriminated tissue a liberty, or rather 

 licence, of reproduction comparable to that it once " enjoyed " 

 in primordial times, long before it had formed intricate " partner- 

 ships " with other cells or tissues. According to the tout -ensemble 

 view, a reduction has taken place in the range of that widely 

 useful co-operation upon which the complete realisation of develop- 

 ment primarily depends. This allows only of stunted, aborted 

 and ill-directed development. The later and higher phases of 

 evolution consequently tend to be obliterated, and, in, proportion 

 as the special forces, momenta and substances which formerly, 

 as a result of high co-operation, maintained and directed these 

 phases, are in course of dissipation, some more primitive phases 

 of life are prone to re-assert their dominance. The higher control 

 has gone with the higher integrity. There is a contraction 

 in the life of the respective tissue commensurate with the con- 

 traction in its socio-physiological usefulness. The cells 

 prising it are " reverting," i.e., preferring " private " to 

 " corporate " autonomy and spurning, as anarchists, the superior 

 laws of the polity to which they yet belong. The result is 

 friction and disease. 



Dr. Mansell Moullin continues thus : 



So little is known of the intimate nature of the chemical changes that 

 take place in the tissues that it is not easy to cite instances in which the 

 failure of any particular reaction has led directly to the cessation of 

 development and the birth of a tumour. 



This recalls the story of the purloined letter for which the 

 detectives groped in every corner of the room while all the time it 

 lay openly on the table. In my opinion the direful effects of non- 

 symbiotic feeding fully account for the failure of normal chemical 



