48 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 



becomes anarchic. Whatever influence epithelium may 

 have upon it, epithelial tissue cells cannot surround, or 

 attempt to encapsule, aberrant connective tissue, for as 

 soon as they proliferate freely they are themselves malignant. 

 It seems to me that these views make it easy to under- 

 stand why a healed gastric or other ulcer may become the 

 originating point of cancer. That there is ever an ulcer 

 at all shows that connective-tissue reactions are weak. 

 When such an ulcer heals there is scar tissue with epithelium 

 already some stages on the way to embryonic epithelium. 

 Ex hypothesi, the underlying fibrous tissue is not very 

 resistant, and when the irritation continues which first 

 caused the ulcer the over-stimulated and already partly 

 wild epithelium proliferates, and is not properly inhibited. 

 Given such conditions, carcinoma can be predicted. The 

 results are no longer a puzzle. 



That benign tumours should often become malignant 

 is, according to the theory advocated, just what might 

 be expected. With senescence there is in the whole body 

 an increase of static elements as compared with the 

 cytoplasm ; a tendency to rigidity, and a loss of the federal 

 unity of the body which we call health. There is less 

 response to regulative stimulation or inhibition, and less or 

 more of the normal hormones to respond to. The result 

 should naturally be an increase in the autonomy of separated 

 parts, and the increasing dominance of any tissue which 

 is in excess. That the chief tendency of malignancy is 

 towards carcinoma, is what we should expect at an age 

 when epithelium in any case tends to become rampant, 

 but that a benign connective-tissue tumour, in which the 

 epithelial portions are at a minimum, should at last break 

 bounds is by no means surprising. When thinking upon 

 such lines, and dealing with phenomena of senescence, it is 



