398 
NATURE 
[June 18, 1gi4 
of the latter, but the misstatements are not cor- 
rected even by so much as a foot-note in the 
reprint in the present volume. Equally distorted 
statements are made by writing :— 
“Bashford in his conceptions of immunity in 
cancers of mice and rats, denies that there is any 
direct influence of the host upon the inoculated 
cancer cell,” and, to take only one other example, 
by asserting, “Bashford, Russell, and Da Fano, 
in describing the connective tissue and vascular 
scaffolding of the cancer cells, mean primarily the 
layer of fibrous tissue which surrounds and encap- 
sulates the graft.”” On the contrary, the mere 
conception of a scaffolding for the cancer cells is 
intended to exclude this idea. What is meant is 
the penetration of the connective tissue and 
vascular cells between the cancer cells in such a 
way that the original arrangement is accurately 
reproduced in normal animals, but not in 
immunised animals. It would not have been 
worth raising the point now had it not been that 
the power of the cancer cells to elicit a specific 
form of stroma in the normal animal, and the 
paralysis of their power to do so in immune 
animals, are as yet the only trustworthy mani- 
festations of the regulation of growth on which 
MacCallum rightly lays so much stress. 
The tentative character of several of the papers 
is necessarily the result of the system of giving 
grants to workers for a particular line of research 
for a determinate period, and can only be avoided 
by adopting a system enabling men with wide 
knowledge and training to become intimately 
acquainted over a long period with such highly 
specialised work as cancer research has now be- 
come. Thus, MacCallum writes on the basis of 
the work criticised above on resistance to growth, 
that in an immune animal the portion of tumour 
implanted is surrounded by connective tissue as 
though it were a mere foreign body; and in spite 
of this abundant stroma reaction, or perhaps on 
account of it, the tumour fails to grow. The 
important facts are not only the surrounding of a 
graft in these circumstances by a connective tissue 
which differs from that in normal animals, but also 
the failure of the reacting tissues to penetrate into 
the graft so as to supply it with a new charac- 
teristic stroma or scaffolding. Similarly, the 
occasional finding that resistance has been pro- 
duced after the inoculation of tissue from a 
strange species, or by autolysed tissues, or that 
it is possible to convey passive immunity, cannot 
be employed against the enormous preponderance 
of observations to the contrary. 
It would be ungenerous not to admit that mis- 
takes are unavoidable at the outset of inquiry 
planned as were these preliminary investigations 
WO! 2320), VOE. 93] 
of the Crocker Fund, and MacCallum himself 
generously acknowledges the progress being made 
by experiment in a brief summary. ‘When it 
became apparent that tumours of animals could 
be transplanted, and thus used in experimental 
studies, great hopes were roused, and, indeed, in 
the past years great things have been accom- 
plished. When we sift the facts impartially, 
however, we find that we have still some of the 
greatest problems before us.’”’ Of the individual 
papers, reference may be made to those on the 
cultivation of tissues, in which due credit is given 
to Ross Harrison for initiating the method. 
Gies, in introducing the bio-chemical investiga- 
tions, says he believes that “the essential factor in 
the etiology of cancer is a stimulus to cell division 
of intra-cellular origin, and that complete under- 
standing of the disease awaits more definite deter- 
mination of the constitution of protoplasm, and 
the reaction tendencies and functional alignments 
of the substance peculiar to cells.” 
“Injury causes different kinds of disease be- 
cause different discoordinations of intra-cellular 
constituents result therefrom. . . Tumours 
may result from intra-cellular derangements, from 
discoordinations of functionally related cellular 
constituents. More closely defined a dis- 
turbance in the production of all the anti-bodies 
directed against the cells or proteins of other 
individuals of the same species might be of prime 
importance as an etiological factor in cancer Iso- 
cells.”. Unfortunately, Gies’s programme could 
not be carried through owing to the difficulties 
placed in his way. ‘‘ Without tumourous animals, 
without cancer patients, and without carcino- 
matous supplies, all our plans for direct chemical 
attack on the cancer problem had to be sus- 
pended.” All three volumes are well indexed. 
Reverting to vol. i, it is correctly described in 
the sub-title as a review of “The Study of Experi- 
mental Cancer,” and is a compilation by Dr. 
W. H. Woglom of all that has been done on ex- 
perimental cancer. Incomplete reviews are avail- 
able in Germany by Karl Lewin and in France by 
Contamin, but there existed up to the appearance 
of the present volume no complete or, indeed, ex- 
tensive review of the more recent experimental 
investigation of cancer. Dr. Woglom has now 
supplied this want in a most admirable and com- 
plete The literature of experimental 
cancer has grown at a great rate, and is already 
so enormous that only those who have been in 
the midst of this work from the beginning can 
take a comprehensive survey of the subject. To 
them, however, the book must prove an indis- 
pensable book of reference, but it will be even 
more welcome to others who wish to take up 
manner. 
. 
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