" PATHOLOGIA PHYSIOLOGIAM ILLUSTRAT" 157 



of elimination. The normal ratio of ingestion and elimination 

 is inverted, precisely as though it were a case of too much 

 " take " and too little " give " on the part of the offending 

 species. And the respective disproportion, the respective 

 diathesis, and the respective " social " disposition are hereditary 

 such is the reverse or pathological side of the " hereditary 

 principle " in Nature. 



Dr. Moullin's distinctive explanation is as follows : 



The cells that compose it (the skin) cannot carry on their work as they 

 should. Their development, which depends upon the chemical changes 

 that take place in them during their work, remains imperfect. It comes 

 to an end before it should, while the cells are still in a stage that was perfect 

 for their remote ancestors, but should only have been a transition stage 

 for them, and, as a consequence, at a time when they are still capable 

 of exercising the powers those ancestors possessed. The result is the 

 formation of a bud, like the buds that were thrown off from time to time 

 by their ancestors, capable of independent growth and composed of cells, 

 the rate of whose growth and multiplication depends upon the maturity 

 of the parental stock at the moment. If the affected cells have all but 

 reached adult age before the interference is felt, the buds that grow from 

 them are all but adult too. The tumour is composed of tissues that 

 resemble those of the normal skin. But if, owing to irritation, whether it is 

 mechanical or chemical or due to the reaction of living organisms, there 

 is a great increase in the proportion of young rapidly growing cells, and if 

 the development of these is checked in their youth, the buds that spring 

 from them resemble them, and then the tumour increases rapidly and 

 spreads wherever it can. (Italics mine.) 



This is an interesting chemico-embryological view of the 

 dissolution of one-time wholesome relations of cells leading up 

 to the anarchy that allows of tumours and cancers. It 

 contains, however, I contend, far too casual a reference to 

 the attendant chemico-economic factors, which are more 

 fundamental, I believe, than the chemico-embryological. 

 Kvidently there is a great deal of incompleteness and of 

 curtailment of development as the result of what ? As the 

 result of incomplete " work " on the part of the individuals or 

 species. We have seen that only essential, i.e., symbiotic work 

 conduces to a wholesome exercise of all the parts, failing 

 which there is glandular anarchy. It is not difficult for a 

 Biologist to read between the lines of the above passage that 

 there obtains a distinct diathesis determining the formation of 

 buds, due to a fairly general impediment of function and a loss of 

 integrity. On the " sociological " side we see a reversion as 



