EDITORIAL. 
91 
cadavers of six dogs, in which rabies had been diagnosticated 
during life, and in 8 out of 12 suspected animals, 5 of which 
were confirmed by inoculation to rabbits. 
From these observations it seems evident that the presence of 
this lesion is one which deserves great attention and ought to 
be inquired into by minute observation. A. L. 
ETIOLOGY OF CANCER. 
The steady increase of cancer among both the human and 
animal species has of late directed the labors of pathologists and 
biologists in various parts of the world to attempt to arrive at 
a definite conclusion concerning the true causation of this most 
formidable disease. Whether the increase of cancer is due to 
the more exact scientific methods now employed in the diag¬ 
nosis of the disease, and which renders its detection in the in¬ 
cipient form more easy than formerly, as is claimed by some in¬ 
vestigators, and that hence the increase of the disease is more 
apparent than real, the unpleasant truth remains that cancer 
according to the latest mortuary statistics is on the increase, 
even after microscopy has permanently eliminated from the list 
of cancer many pathological conditions heretofore classed as 
cancerous, such as localized tuberculosis, actinomycosis, botry- 
omycosis, etc. 
The opinion hitherto nearly universal among pathologists 
that cancer was caused by a specific cancer bacteria belonging 
to the unicellar plants or Schizomycetes of the lowest order of 
the vegetable kingdom, is slowly giving way ; because, in all 
the innumerable attempts that have been made to isolate such a 
specific cancer bacteria, failure has been met with, several 
different organisms being found in the cancerous neoplasms. 
The more rational theory of the etiology of cancer is, there¬ 
fore, gaining way that cancer is caused by several different or¬ 
ganisms belonging not to the vegetable, but the animal king¬ 
dom, and that these organisms undoubtedly belong to the order 
of rhizopoda , and class mycetozoa . Recent laboratory experi¬ 
ments have been carried out in which cases of undoubted car- 
