September 9, 1004.] 



SCIENCE. 



345 



study, fuller examinations will be made, and 

 the results will appear in the publications of 

 the Carnegie Museum. O. A. Peterson. 

 Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, 

 August 18, 1904. 



QUOTATIONS. 



THE CANCER RESEARCH FUND. 



Among the facts established by the report is 

 that cancer can be successfully transplanted 

 from any animal into another animal of the 

 same species, but not into an animal of a dif- 

 ferent species; and this inoculability, so to 

 speak, will hereafter be largely utilized for 

 the purpose of obtaining cancer patients. A 

 single cancer may in this way be passed on, so 

 to speak, through several generations of ani- 

 mals, the original growth and those arising 

 from it surviving all the hosts in which they 

 have successively found the materials for 

 their support; and it is further remarkable 

 that the growth of cancer is found to be of a 

 character unlike the growth of an individual. 

 Every individual life, whether of plant or 

 animal, springs from the union of two parent 

 cells; but, when this union has been effected 

 and the life of the new individual has com- 

 menced, its future growth is provided for and 

 maintained by a simple division and subdivi- 

 sion of the cells entering into its several struc- 

 tures. In the case of cancer, however, it has 

 been found that cell conjugation is continuous, 

 and that the growth as a whole may therefore 

 be regarded as a colony of individuals pro- 

 ducing offspring, rather than as a part of the 

 tissues of the subject in which it grows. It is 

 so far definitely parasitical in its character; 

 and it is suggested that the means of arresting 

 it may probably be found in the employment 

 of some method by which the cell conjugation 

 occurring in its mass may be prevented. The 

 inquiry will be pursued in this direction ; but, 

 while the bulk of the inoculation experiments 

 hitherto instituted have been in small animals, 

 and chiefly in mice, 'it will be necessary to use 

 larger ones, of species whose life histories have 

 been more carefully studied, for the purpose 

 of investigating methods of treatment likely 

 to prove applicable to the human subject. 

 Perhaps all that can fairly be said, at this 



stage of the inquiry, is that the ground has 

 been cleared of miich error, and that paths 

 apparently leading towards future progress 

 have been brought to light. 



It must be regarded as a matter for much 

 congratulation that the evidence so far ob- 

 tained' does not confirm the popular belief in 

 the increasing frequency of cancer; although 

 Sir William Church, in his speech moving the 

 adoption of the report, was careful to indi- 

 cate that no absolute conclusion could be 

 reached in relation to this part of the subject. 

 The statistics obtainable, especially with re- 

 gard to the past, are not sufficiently trust- 

 worthy to justify the formation of positive 

 conclusions; while the improvements recently 

 effected in microscopes, as well as in the 

 methods of preparing tissues for examination, 

 have rendered it more easy now than at any 

 former time to pronounce authoritatively on 

 the cancerous or non-cancerous character of 

 any growth that is either removed from the 

 living body or discovered after death. It will 

 be seen from the abstract of the report that a 

 considerable percentage of cases of suspected 

 cancer have been discovered, on microscopic 

 examination, not to be of that character; and 

 the superintendent. Dr. Bashford, points out 

 that this affords a probable explanation of a 

 good many reputed ' cures ' of the disease. A 

 fact of equal importance is that really can- 

 cerous growths are not attended in their early 

 stages by any special symptoms from which 

 their character can be detected with certainty ; 

 and on this the report founds a strenuous rec- 

 ommendation that all growths which are even 

 possibly cancerous should be removed by opera- 

 tion without delay. — The London Times. 



NOTES ON INORGANIC CHEMISTRY. 

 RADIUM AND RADIOACTIVITY. 



The study of radium and radioactivity con- 

 tinues with unabated zeal, and new light is 

 being continually thrown upon the subject. 

 Naturally Sir William Eamsay must be recog- 

 nized as one of the foremost workers, and 

 whatever comes from him carries great weight. 

 For this reason great interest attaches to a 

 recent communication of his in the Comptes 

 Bendus on the radium emanation, for 



