DEFINITION OF THE TERM 'CANCER,' ETC. 79 



division in the cells of malignant growths. Klebs attempted to find 

 some explanation for the abnormal cell-forms that are seen, and 

 ultimately he arrived at the opinion that leucocytes present within 

 the epithelial cells of cancer exert a spermatic property by which 

 they fertilize the epithelial cells, so awakening in them renewed 

 activity of proliferation conferring on them, in fact, the properties 

 of fertilized ovum-cells. Klebs's theory has recently been revived 

 in this country in a slightly modified form. The following pages 

 will make it clear that as far as cancer of connective tissues is 

 concerned there is no evidence whatever that leucocytes play any 

 such part, and in a subsequent publication I think that I shall be 

 able to show that in epithelial cancer also that theory is equally 

 unnecessary, and devoid of real objective evidence in the cellular 

 elements of the tissues concerned. 



All the accepted views of the objective cell-phenomena in malig- 

 nant disease are based upon the assumption stated above namely, 

 that all the obvious cells in the tissues implicated in the disease are 

 derived from the sufferer's own body. The term ' metastasis ?1 is 

 based upon the assumption that secondary tumours are transplanted 

 from the primary. Those who have challenged the universal appli- 

 cation of this assumption have not as yet received much encourage- 

 ment. In the present volume I wish to give in a consecutive 

 manner the result of a re-examination of the question as far as it 

 concerns the commoner and better - known of the sarcomas or 

 connective-tissue cancers, 2 they being less complicated in histological 

 structure than the epithelial cancers, reserving publication of the 

 results of a re-examination of the latter for as early a date as 

 opportunity will allow. As a basis for comparing the histology 

 of sarcomas with that of normal granulation tissue, I have taken 



1 By the constant use of such terms in pathological argument attention has 

 been diverted from objective facts and transferred to unproven assumptions. 



2 When I first published my view of the cause of sarcoma it was said, 'What is 

 sarcoma but cancer of connective tissue ?' I had arrived at the same conclusion 

 by finding that the same peculiar cells and cell-inclusions which distinguish sar- 

 comas and epithelial cancers from normal tissues were found in sarcomas as well 

 as in epithelial cancers. 



