CHAPTER II 



Malignancy 



BEFORE trying to show how a general biological 

 and sociological principle can assist the investigator 

 of malignancy, I may say that it was the form of it 

 known as X-ray cancer which led me to attempt a co- 

 ordination of the many apparently unrelated facts con- 

 nected with it. To one not unfamiliar with speculation 

 from the time of Durante and Cohnheim, it seemed remark- 

 able that such a new aspect of the problem did not lead 

 the medical profession to discard theories formed before 

 X-rays were known. For, in the welter of conflicting 

 opinions as to the causes of cancer, it was at least certain 

 that here were agents which not only might, but, if suffi- 

 ciently applied, must in the end produce it. It seemed to 

 me then, as it seems now, that when such were discovered 

 all arguments as to the part played by " rests," or irritation, 

 or an acquired bad habit of tissues (Adami), or some 

 unknown infection, protozoal or bacillary, were partly 

 beside the point. Those martyrs to science, the early 

 radiologists, must have died in vain if no one recognizes 

 the high importance of the facts to which their agonies 

 bore witness. That radiologists, so far as I am aware, 

 have not seen the full value of X-ray dermatitis and 

 malignancy in cancer theory is, I can only suppose, due 

 to the immense calls upon their time and the peculiar 



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