MALIGNANCY 49 



a not uninteresting speculation if we venture to attribute to 

 a temporary rejuvenescence the partial cures or allevia- 

 tions of symptoms often found when a new empirical remedy 

 is tried in inoperable cases. To inspire hope by whatever 

 means is a function of the physician and, to do so is, in the 

 language of the physicists, to free energy. The hopeless 

 patient, when concentred on his symptoms and his feelings, 

 is doubly the host of a parasite, his energy is bound within 

 a narrow circle, his horizon of life contracted to a mere 

 point. As a result his functions fail : he eliminates 

 less and less toxin, the static elements increase till the cyto- 

 plasm of his whole organism is as unable to cope with its 

 work as his cerebral cytoplasm is to face the general situa- 

 tion. If he is afforded hope in any way whatsoever the 

 engine works again : there is at least a temporary rejuven- 

 escence, and the partially freed tissues tend to resume theii 

 functions. At such a stage the progress of a tumour may 

 be arrested by the renewed action of connective tissue 01 

 epithelium, or of the general regulative metabolism of the 

 whole body. 



Though cancer " cures " may thus exercise a favourable, 

 if brief, influence on those who suffer, their number and 

 character bear bitter witness to the confusion of the whole 

 subject. In theory I have been unable to find any general 

 principle at work. If it were not that in looking back 

 upon the past of pathology it is seen that most advances 

 have been made rather by trial and error, than by any 

 great grasp of the human mind, those who are not wedded 

 to one particular theory might indeed feel hopeless. Amid 

 the din of battle, the confusion and the shouting, it is hard 

 to discover order. Yet to those who are somewhat with- 

 drawn from the arena, facts do sometimes emerge which 

 seem of real relevance. The long-known occasional cure 

 4 



