APPENDIX A 249
glass image “ instances—were shown, as well as a rather
unique case of identical triplets, who were born, lived long, and married in
America. According to Professor H. H. Wilder, these, as girls, were so alike
that no one could distinguish between them. Even their mother, who said she
could, had to place strings of differently coloured beads around their necks.
When they were small children, one of them confided to a friend that she had
been bathed three times that morning. Sadly, but significantly enough, two of
them died of cancer. It was pointed out that two of them—the two outer ones in
the picture—were exact duplicates, or “out of the same mould,” while the
third—the centre one—was a looking-glass image of the other two. Although, in
fact, not known to the speaker, it was affirmed, for embryological reasons,
which two died of cancer, and why. The two outer ones were the products of
“right-hand” germ-cells, while the middle one was an instance of the
development of a “ left-hands’ germ-cell. The latter certainly possessed
reversed organs, including viscera. She did not die of cancer, because she had
arisen from a germ-cell which in other circumstances might have become a cancer—as
had happened in her sisters. She herself was an unfolded cancer germ-cell. From
this example, and others, it was concluded that of the germ-cells of any human
development eight might be termed “embryonic.” Of these, one normally unfolded
as an embryo, and any of the other seven might be looked upon as
“tumour-cells,” which later on might give rise to serious
—even disastrous—consequences, if they failed to degenerate
in early development. The concluding portion of the lecture was devoted to the
consideration of the embryological (as distinct from the medical) solution of
the cancer problem. The speaker declined to predict that the embryological
solution of the problem of cancer would certainly turn out to be its medical
solution. He had long held that cancer was an embryological problem. Now, owing
to his recent results, cancer ceased to be a