OKTHOGENESIS AND SEROLOGICAL 

 PHENOMENA 



PROFESSOR M. F. GUYER 

 University of Wisconsin 



As my discussion progresses I fear that some of my 

 hearers may be reminded of the old joke about the mon- 

 goose. A stranger carrying an odd-looking box was asked 

 by a man whose curiosity got the better of his good man- 

 ners, what was in the box. The stranger replied that it 

 was a mongoose and went on to explain that his brother 

 was subject to delirium tremens, during the attacks of 

 wliich he believed that he was being strangled by snakes ; 

 this mongoose was to catch the snakes. To the reminder 

 by the inquisitive man that these were imaginary snakes 

 he retorted, ' ' Yes, I know, but this is an imaginary mon- 



Since some of our most competent investigators in the 

 fields of genetics and evolution are skeptical apparently 

 about the whole question of orthogenesis, to them, at least, 

 I shall be making an imaginary attack upon a mythical 

 phenomenon. President Kofoid, however, seemed to think 

 that some of the recent work with immune sera done in 

 my laboratory, which strongly indicates the induction of 

 permanent germinal modifications, might have possible 

 theoretical implications bearing on the question of ortho- 

 genesis, and I agreed to discuss the subject, although 

 realizing at the outset that the net result would not be 

 a scientific proof, but merely a suggestion which might 

 possibly be of some value as one of various working 

 hypotheses. 



First as to orthogenesis itself; is there such a process? 

 Our answer must depend largely upon how we define 

 ortliogenesis. It takes but a glance at the literature of 

 the subject to see that it has meant many different things 

 to many different people, ranging from a mystical inner 

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