INTRODUCTION 13
the
following pages will show, my fundamental discoveries of the nature of cancer,
and of the places of the two all-powerful ferments, trypsin and amylopsin, in
the treatment of this natural phenomenon, not disease, were founded in the
first instance in the science of embryology. This is as true for the separate
reasons advanced for the employment of trypsin and of amylopsin as it is for
those urged in 1902 as demonstrating the asexual (trophoblastic) nature of
cancer.* Afterwards, from 1906, the chemical evidences—the stereo-chemical
ones—began to reveal themselves to the observer, who was not like that genius
Pasteur, “a mere chemist,” but a practical embryologist, who had chanced to
have some sort of elementary chemical education at the hands of Sir Henry
Roscoe and of that pioneer of comparative physiological chemistry, the late
Professor C. F. W.
* Sexual and Asexual, Sexual Generation
and Asexual Generation—In animals and in plants two modes of reproduction are
recognized, the sexual one, by means of germ-cells, eggs, and sperms. and the
asexual by budding, which is really a process of continuous indefinite
cell-division, with no eggs or sperms. In an animal or plant a sexual
generation is one which bears reproductive organs, in which eggs or sperms, or
both, arise. On the other hand, an asexual generation of an animal or plant is
one which never bears reproductive organs, eggs or sperms. or both. but which
reproduces in the way indicated above, really by cell-division. In plants the
asexual generation is the flowering plant, which is capable of indefinite
unrestricted increase, as, for example, a Gloire de Dijon rose or the
fine white chrysanthemum. Niveus. Originally there was but one plant of
each of these. The sexual generation of a flowering plant is a small
microscopic entity contained within the flower. In animals all the individuals
which bear sexual organs belong to the sexual generation, while the asexual
generations are represented in various ways. Thus, in the sea-polypes, by the
colony of polypes, while here the medusae or “jelly-fish” are sexual; in worms,
starfish, etc., by what are known as larvae, while here the worm, starfish,
etc., arc sexual and lastly, in the highest animals or mammals the asexual
generation is present only during uterine life, as what Hubrecht termed the
trophoblast. This latter used to be regarded as one of the” foetal membranes”
under the name of the chorion.