" CONTRE-EVOLUTION " 201 



and diagnosed by him as Acromegaly. What is omitted, and 

 what has to be borne in mind above all, is this, that although 

 tadpoles are mostly cross-feeders pointing to a one-time 

 purely cross-feeding ancestry yet the adult frogs are frequently 

 inveterate in-feeders, taking large toll of insect and other life, 

 which must give rise to a diathesis and likewise to infection. 

 All carnivorous or insectivorous animals suffer from food-borne 

 infection, and anyone dissecting a frog can, as a rule, detect some 

 parasite. Acromegaly here, according to Dr. Larger, is due 

 not to a local but to a general cause : 



une cause de nature toxi-infectieuse ce qui est prouve par 1'invasion 

 uniforme de tous les tissus par les leucocytes et les cellules osinophyles, 

 cause efficiente des processus a la fois hyperplasiques et atrophiques dont 

 ces m ernes tissus sont le siege. 



But, surely, the chief cause behind Dr. Larger's " non-local " 

 cause, is in-feeding, the bad effects of which universally lead 

 to antitheses as here portrayed. In this connection the author 

 again insists that there is a pathological reason for the fact that 

 we never meet with " Gigantisme acromegalique " at the 

 beginning of a phylum, without, however, being able to specify 

 the true reason for the comparatively late incidence of the 

 visitation. All he can tell us is that some ancestor must have 

 left a " heredite pathologique." The phenomenon, however, 

 can be accounted for by the view that the beginning of a phylum 

 is everywhere made by cross-feeding and by such wholesome 

 biological activities as preclude disease. Such behaviour alone 

 leads up to a fruitful patrimony. The frailty of life, however, 

 is such, that wholesome development is frequently followed by 

 abuse, leading to the growth of a parasitic diathesis, which 

 finally leaves the organism, if monstrous, yet bare of viability 

 and of power of orientation in the world of life. Though without 

 any subjection to the will of man, or, for that matter, to that of 

 any other creature, the acromegalic organism ultimately loses 

 the ability of duly fending for itself and of adapting itself pro- 

 gressively. Its life and constitution are no longer congruous 

 with the leading socio-physiological contingencies of existence. 

 Its very existence is an anachronism in modern evolution. 



Acromegaly, human or animal, is marked by " anarchic 

 glandulaire " in the absence, I should say, of a perfect 

 glandular balance. And this balance depends upon (a) internal 

 symbiosis, and, concomitantly, (b) upon external Symbiosis, the 



