54 THE ENZYME TREATMENT OF CANCER
inquiries,
dating as long ago as 1888, cannot be given at all in detail here. A general
survey of the chief conclusions will be found in “ Heredity and the Epicycle
of the Germ-Cells.”* The nature of cancer is really known, but not recognized.
Failure to perceive the true nature of carcinoma has hitherto been due to one
simple fact the views generally—nay, universally—held regarding the course of
the cycle of development from egg to egg are erroneous.
Were
an embryologist of to-day asked what in outline was the cycle of development in
one of the higher forms— say a fish, chick, or mammal—he would probably be
amazed at the question. “ The hen lays the egg, the latter gives birth to a new
hen, and so, as Kleinenberg once remarked of something else, under the eyes of
the delighted and astonished spectator, the cycle is completed. This supposed
cycle has never really been witnessed, for the very good reason that it does
not exist. The hen neither produces the egg, nor is it the chief, nor even the
immediate task of the latter to give rise to a new hen. As the establishment of
this and of the true life-cycle have filled in the working hours of the writer
during many years, it may be obvious that the production of the evidences must be
beyond the limits of this book. Indeed, no attempt will be made to prove here
what the true life-cycle is, and wherein its details lie ; the results of
previous work will be assumed, and for fuller information the reader may be
referred to the original memoirs.
In
the higher animals—the Metazoa—what is termed “direct development “ does not,
and cannot, exist. It has been found that the cycle of animal development, even
of the highest forms, resembles very closely that of
* Biologisohes
Centralblatt, 1902,
vol. Xxii., pp. 321-328, 353-360, and 398-408.