104 



THE AM ERIC AX NATURALIST 



; Vol. LIl 



In the case of the human being there is no more fitting 

 example of a fatal, protective communistic action of cells 

 than that which occurs when a human being obtains a 

 severe and destructive burn about the mouth or in the 

 esophagus. Under such circumstances the fibroblasts in 

 the region become hypertrophic, hyperplastic, differen- 

 tiated and specialized into dense, contracting scar-tissue, 

 which, if the destruction has been great enough, may, as 

 a communistic, regenerative, protective process, inherent 

 in the fibroblasts, completely close the orifice of the mouth 

 or esophagus, the result of which is starvation and de- 

 struction of the whole organism. The fibroblast's evo- 

 lutionary duty in the communism is that of replacing 

 losses of other tissues, and the duty is performed in this 

 incidence at the expense of its own life and the life of 

 the organism. Thus, it may be seen that communistic 

 life is secondary to the life of the cells even in such a 

 wonderful and complex organization as the human body. 



The hyperplasia or neoplasia does not even have to be 

 migratory from a cellular standpoint to destroy the 

 whole organism and thereby be clinically malignant; a 

 term which has been utilized by the medical profession 

 largely to differentiate cancer from other neoplastic con- 

 ditions which are generally conceived of as benign. 

 Thus, a fibroid tumor of the uterus may be clinically ma- 

 lignant and still not show cytologic- signs of the malig- 

 nancy so characteristic of cancer. 



Biologically speaking, protection may be divided into 

 types— cytotypic, textotypic, organotypic, systemotypic. 



etc. Cancer represents the cytotypic protection which 

 is of primary importance in all protection of living pro- 

 toplasm. 



From a biological standpoint the three reactions of 

 regenerative cells of tissues to antagonistic influences are 

 hypertrophy and hyperplasia with differentiation, hy- 

 perplasia without differentiation, and hvperplasia with 

 migration, with or without partial differentiation. These 

 three conditions have been termed cytoplasias (condi- 



