50 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 



of cancer due to erysipelas is one of them, and the very 

 failure of Coley's fluid, composed of the toxins of S. ery- 

 sipelatosus and B. prodigiosus, to fulfil the hopes of its 

 inventor, may, if considered in a proper light, be of the 

 greatest assistance. That these toxins, without the acute 

 attack, fail of their purpose, suggests very forcibly that it is 

 not such toxins which inhibit the growth of the aberrant 

 tissue, but that it is overcome by the immense reactions of 

 the connective tissue which result in the cure of the acute 

 infection. So far as Coley's fluid excites the connective 

 tissue, so far it may possibly do good. Such a view is 

 greatly strengthened by the experiments of Ehrlich and 

 Apolant, if they can be regarded as authenticated. This 

 is, I think, thought by many not to be the case ; but their 

 results fall in so completely with the views advocated in this 

 paper, that I find it impossible to disregard them. That a 

 transplanted mouse carcinoma should in certain cases 

 produce sarcoma seemed to some impossible ; and to some a 

 proof that the transplanted tissue was really sarcomatous. 

 Yet if it is granted for the moment that epithelium and con- 

 nective tissue live in symbiotic hostility, such a phenomenon 

 is by no means so surprising as it looks. It is but re- 

 action overbalancing itself. On continued transplantation 

 with one strain it is said that the connective tissue overcame 

 the epithelium, till it at last consisted of scattered cells only, 

 so that finally the graft was a pure sarcoma. In another 

 strain this " power to induce sarcoma " was lost, and the 

 tumour remained epithelial in character. The phrase 

 " power to induce sarcoma " is, to say the least of it, 

 unhappy. By the phenomenon, if correctly reported, we 

 have to understand that the host's connective tissue did not 

 react. No explanation of these observations is to be found 

 in any theory but that of the action and reaction of the two 



