132 THE ENZYME TREATMENT OF CANCER
like
twins. The facts concerning these, as well as those relating to Hermann von
Jhering’s finds in the armadillo (Praopus hybridus), which my work has
fully confirmed, furnished the key. This armadillo, the “tatu,” produces all
its young in one chorion or trophoblast, and therefore they are all identical,
of the like sex, and all products of one egg. The whole doctrine of the
tumours, benign and malignant, centres in the phenomena of like twins—that is,
in a former multiplicity of embryos, all products of one egg. To-day the “tatu”
(P. hybridus) produces seven to twelve such, all derived from a single
egg, all of the like sex, and some of them more or less rudimentary!
These
latter tell a very significant story* to the embry-
* Because
hypothetical, the following may find a place as a foot-note. From the
consideration comparatively of a variety of embryological phenomena, well known
to the investigator, it is obvious that the procedure, where only a single
embryo is going to arise from one of the primary germ-cells. will not be quite
the same when two or more embryos are destined to unfold. The setting apart of
one cell will be preceded by one or two divisions, giving one functional cell
and possibly three abortive ones. But if the development shall result in, say,
triplets, there will be, not merely two divisions, but at least three, if not
four. Of the products, which are all primary germ-cells, three will unfold as
embryos, three may be abortive or rudimentary, and, if there be eight all told,
two will remain as “embryonic cells,” which later on, in some or other of the
individuals arising, may become the seed of tumours, benign or malignant. But
these cell divisions have a curious tendency to be in twos or pairs, or even in
threes; so that in the formation of triplets, instead of eight cells, there may
be sixteen concerned. How many of these will be abortive, and how many
“embryonic” in potentialities, is at present impossible to say. The armadillo, Praopus
hybridus. with its seven to twelve young in one chorion or trophoblast,
affords an instance where at least sixteen cells must originally in every case
have arisen at the line of primary germ-cells and in addition to those cells
destined to become the sexual products. Of these sixteen cells, seven normally
give rise to fully-developed embryos, five to more or less rudimentary ones,
and there still remain four, which—as cancer, is not known here—may be
abortive.