248 THE ENZYME TREATMENT OF CANCER
the
American Commission might say, the nature of cancer as an irresponsible asexual
generation or trophoblast had been known for two and a hall years. The speaker
proceeded to give an account of his own work upon the history and origin of the
germ-cells, from which it had been established beyond question that these were
pre-embryonic in origin, arising upon an asexual foundation or trophoblast,
and that by the self-sacrifice of one an embryo was unfolded to contain and to
nourish the other germ-cells for a certain brief span of time. In every case
examined it had been found that a varying percentage of the germ-cells failed
to reach the right place in the body, and these might be found in almost any
organ or position. At first sight it had seemed that any one of these might
later on give rise to a tumour, benign or malignant, for they represented, in
fact, the “ lost germs” of the pathologists. The speaker’s earlier work upon
the life-cycle, published between 1894 and 1898, was next briefly described.
These researches had established that, prior to the appearance of an embryo or
sexual form, there arose an asexual foundation—the trophoblast—upon which the
germ-cells and embryo came into being. In any normal case, at a certain
definite period, the embryo was able to suppress the asexual foundation, and
the latter slowly degenerated. If however, the embryo were absent or very
abnormal, the trophoblast might, and often did, become a very deadly form of
cancer—chorio-epithelioma. The two generations had different nutritions—a fact
of extreme importance— and the “digestion” of a cancer resembled that of the
trophoblast of normal development. An account was then given of the speaker’s
conclusions as to the origin of tumours, and their relation to identical twins,
triplets, etc. It was shown that each such identical twin, triplet, etc., was
due to the independent development of a single germ-cell, and not, as was
commonly held, to the splitting of a “ germ.” Slides of the two sorts of
identical twins— those “ from the same mould,” and those rarer “looking-