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     154                                  THE ENZYME TREATMENT OF CANCER

 

The cycle of life, animal or vegetable, is asymmetrical, because the antithetic alternation of generations under­lying it is founded on the asymmetry of these atoms. The generations, sexual or asexual, alternate according as the compounds are built up in the one direction or the other, for at its basis development is the building-up of naturally occurring compounds. In both animals and plants enzymes or ferments are the chief actors in this. The new organism, whether animal or plant, destroys that upon which it arose, and builds up in the opposite direc­tion. The birth of the new fern-plant implies the destruc­tion of the prothallus. The embryo or sexual generation of a mammal, or a man, destroys the asexual generation, the trophoblast, or chorion, upon which it arose, and builds up its compounds in the opposite direction to that employed by the latter. So also the cancer. This irresponsible trophoblast or asexual generation destroys the naturally occurring organic compounds and the sexual organism upon which it arose, and builds up in the oppo­site direction.

The action of a ferment is always a specific one. It fits the substance upon which it acts, “ as a key fits a lock “ (Emil Fischer). Other substances it leaves un­touched, even isomeric compounds having an opposite rotation. As I)r. Margaret A. Cleaves* wrote in the Medical Record of June 1, 1907: “ It is probable that enzymes are of stereo-chemical configuration in their construction ; that is, that they are built upon a central element having a definite valence, and hence, that all enzymes are capable of entering into chemical action

 

* Cleaves. M. A .:“The Physiological Action of the Pan­creatic Enzymes, with Special Reference to Hematology, Urin­ology, and Clinical Pathology,” Medical Record, June, 1, 1907, New York.

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