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      44                                  THE ENZYME TREATMENT OF CANCER

 

von der Krebskrankheit,” vol. i., the list of investi­gators given includes more than a thousand names— to be exact, 1,004. Why, of these, did 1,003 fail, and but a single one succeed ? The answer to this is not far to seek, and, indeed, it is contained in the true solution which is detailed in the following pages. All scientific research, to be successful in the end and en­during, must start in correct principles, or, at any rate, not in false ones. Until in recent years a practical embryologist of long-working experience applied the general principle of an antithetic alternation of genera­tions to the problem of cancer, it had always been attacked from the standpoints of three embryological dogmas, which have this in common—that they are false, though “generally accepted.” These are epigenesis, or direct building-up of the embryo from the products of the fertilized egg (Harvey and Wolff) ; somatic origin of germ-cells, as ‘‘ chips ‘‘ of the ‘‘ old block ‘‘ (Huxley) and recapitulation in development, as maintained by Haeckel and his followers. If these doctrines, which are pretty “generally accepted,” were true, if they contained a particle of truth, the solutions of the problems of cancer would follow inevitably out of them. If they were false, as they are, their applications to cancer could but lead to failure, and this has been the case. Years ago, as opposed to these dogmas and as scientifically true, I set up, on grounds of observation, the three doctrines of evolution with predestination (Weismann anticipating me in this), a morphological continuity of germ-cells, and an antithetic alternation of generations.

      This trilogy of doctrines is in reality one and indivisible. if this trilogy were scientifically correct, its application to the problems of cancer must end in their resolution, and this has, in fact, happened. It would not have

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