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     244                                 THE ENZYME TREATMENT OF CANCER

 

canons of stereo-chemistry. But it may be taken as an axiom not open to ridicule that what Nature cannot dis­pense with, that the scientific investigator may not ignore.

Now, in the course of my research career it has never been a maxim of mine to leave unto others what I could do myself, and the like is true of the present situation also. Much more than the asexual (trophoblastic) theory of cancer depends upon this crucial test. It is the ultimate basis of the law and mode of animal develop­ment. By the canons of stereo-chemistry, no less than by those of embryology, trophoblast and cancer must be made up of dextro-rotatory albumins—that is, in simple words, these albumins in solution must in the polarimeter rotate the plane of polarized light to the right, not to the left.

The foregoing theses are set up to define the position now, and the prophecy is made that, when submitted to the polarimeter under strictly scientific conditions, it will be seen that the albumins of cancer and of tropho­blast rotate the plane of polarized light to the right, and not to the left. The natural—that is, the scientific— means of destroying these dextro-rotatory albumins in the living condition are sufficiently potent injections of trypsin and amylopsin.

A great investigator and thinker, August Weismann, once said that the investigator should never forget that he stood upon his predecessors’ shoulders. Possibly the scoffers and the anonymous writers stand upon nothing less substantial than a soap-bubble! They have kept concealed carefully the foundations upon which their feet might be supposed to rest. Let them not forget that my feet rest upon the mighty shoulders of Pasteur, and that, in their turn, his were fixed firmly upon foundation-­stones of the visible universe.

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