Southern Branch 
 of the 
 
 University of California 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 Form L 1 
 
 17
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 SEP 2 g 192) 
 JUN 7 i<fc 
 
 1929 
 
 JAN 2'- 1930, 
 
 
 29 t< 
 
 
 ' 
 
 Form L-9-15m-8,'26 

 
 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY
 
 WARFARE IN THE 
 HUMAN BODY 
 
 ESSAYS ON METHOD, MALIGNITY, 
 REPAIR AND ALLIED SUBJECTS 
 
 BY 
 
 MORLEY ROBERTS 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 PROFESSOR ARTHUR KEITH 
 
 M.D., F.R.C.S., F.R.S., ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 E. P. BUTTON COMPANY 
 
 68 1 FIFTH AVENUE
 
 first Published in 1921 
 
 ERRATA 
 
 Page 3 line 5 from bottom, for rater read rarer 
 
 41 ,, 10, for predominately re&d. predmninantly 
 ,, 121 ,, 13, for hystoirlal read hyxte.roidal 
 
 131 ,, 10 from bottom, for aniwo-acidx read amino-acida 
 ,, 198 ,, 1, iorcha nc/e aasuredly read change, assured fi/ 
 , 2t6 , 7 from bottom, for Spring read Summer
 
 v 
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 BY 
 
 PROFESSOR ARTHUR KEITH, F.R.S. 
 
 AS I read over the manuscript pages of these essays, 
 by my friend Morley Roberts, there came back to me 
 the memory of a night in London, when I set out from a 
 scientific meeting to guide a provincial colleague to his 
 hotel through streets obliterated by a blinding November 
 fog. The way was familiar to me, yet in the end the 
 stranger from the country proved the better guide, for it 
 was he who ultimately took us straight to our destination. 
 By the mere use of his map-fed imagination my friend had 
 mastered the details of London better than I had done after 
 years of residence. Imagination with him had turned the 
 dry and dusty maps, plans, contour-lines and guide books of 
 a great city he had never seen into a living reality, in which 
 he could find his way with confidence, and even offer help 
 to befogged citizens. In these essays by Mr. Morley Roberts 
 we have a parallel case. He has not lived, toiled, and 
 earned a livelihood in any one of the multitude of quarters 
 into which the bewildering City of Modern Science is 
 sharply divided. Yet by the sheer force of his imagination, 
 one which is at once intimate, intuitive, accurate, and vivid
 
 vi FOREWORD 
 
 he has absorbed the atmosphere of the place, become 
 familiar with its inhabitants, their ways of thought, and 
 their industries to a degree which is rare among even the 
 most experienced natives of this great city. Had he been 
 merely an intelligent visitor to their strange dwelling-place, 
 one who had wandered through its docklands, its business 
 quarters, its Smithfields, its Covent Gardens, its Mayfairs, 
 its Kensingtons, and its Hampsteads, and reported faith- 
 fully in these essays what he had heard and seen, then he 
 would have accomplished a rare feat. But he has done more 
 than this ; he is a serious student who has made frequent 
 journeys to the city of science in search of explanations to 
 the riddles of life, and has brought back suggestions and 
 answers which should obtain the ear of all thinking people, 
 and which deserve the closest scrutiny from men of science. 
 I look on these essays as a contribution to knowledge of an 
 altogether new kind. The man who suggests the most 
 likely path to truth stands next in the hierarchy of great- 
 ness to him who actually finds it. 
 
 How is it possible, the reader of these essays may well 
 ask, that one who has been known these thirty years past 
 to a wide circle of readers as a writer of fiction, can know 
 anything concerning the secrets of life and of disease with 
 which men of science are not already familiar ? The 
 explanation is not far to seek. As a writer of true fiction 
 it was Mr. Morley Roberts' business to study human 
 nature and human action, and to grasp the conditions, 
 under which millions of individuals might be massed in 
 communities, and yet remain free and happy. In the 
 body of the healthy living animal, where billions of vital
 
 FOREWORD vii 
 
 units are massed together in ordered harmony, Nature has 
 accomplished this miracle. What was more natural, then, 
 than that an author endowed with a vast share of 'intel- 
 lectual curiosity and gifted with the diagnostic acumen of 
 the born physician should seek for a solution of his diffi- 
 culties in the workshops of men of science ? He went to 
 them at first as a student of sociology in search of facts 
 which would help him to understand the laws which should 
 regulate the conduct of human beings living under the 
 ever-changing conditions of our modern civilization. But in 
 time it began to dawn upon him, as he watched the labours 
 of the men who are striving to unveil the mysteries of living 
 matter physiologists, pathologists, psychologists, em- 
 bryologists, bacteriologists, biochemists, anthropologists, 
 zoologists, and botanists that the student of sociology 
 had at least as much to give as to receive. He found that 
 the problems which face the students of that most marvel- 
 lous of living organized communities the healthy human 
 body the problems of disease and of health, of malignancy, 
 immunity, inhibition, heredity, cell division, evolution, 
 growth, repair and old age had their parallels and analogues 
 in organized human societies. He therefore commenced 
 to ascertain how far the obscure phenomena of biology 
 could be elucidated by applying the explanations which are 
 familiar to students of social phenomena. Thus it comes 
 about that in these essays we have records of a unique 
 kind records made by a layman after years of hard think- 
 ing and close observation which he now places before his 
 professional brethren with a skilled pen, a rare wealth of 
 apt simile, using always the diffident and modest language
 
 riii FOREWORD 
 
 of the real searcher after truth. No one who loves that 
 search will lay this book down unrewarded. 
 
 Men who have grown grey in those quarters of the City 
 of Science, which are devoted to the service of medicine, 
 are accustomed to the visits of strangers of diverse types. 
 They have seen chemists like Pasteur and Lavoisier, and 
 clergymen like Stephen Hales and Priestley, force their 
 ways into their workshops, ultimately revolutionizing 
 their industries. They are also familiar with the newly 
 fledged student of first-aid, who breaks his way through the 
 circle of spectators surrounding a street accident, and 
 brushing aside the skilled surgeon, takes charge of the case. 
 Occasionally, too, they come across those visitors who, letting 
 their imagination rise on untrammelled wing, picture for 
 them a future full of marvels. In Morley Roberts we have a 
 visitor of a new kind one who compels his imagination 
 when in flight to observe the laws of gravity, time, and space. 
 Nay, so like a native does this visitor carry himself, that for 
 several years there were many besides myself that had no 
 suspicion that Morley Roberts, the erudite writer on medical 
 and allied problems, was the same Morley Roberts who is 
 known in Bohemia as an artist of noted skill with pen 
 and brush. In these essays he has earned for himself the 
 freedom of the City of Realities or Science. 
 
 With one last word my privileged task of introducing 
 the reader to these essays is finished. Their author has 
 drawn large drafts on the Bank of Science ; I, for one, am 
 willing to endorse his bills. 
 
 ARTHUR KEITH.
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 THE questions discussed in this book arose originally as 
 side-issues in the prosecution of studies for a much 
 larger book, to be entitled Social Physiology and Pathology, 
 in which I meant to deal with the health and diseases 
 of social organisms, as well as with the laws underlying 
 political energy as it seeks blindly to adapt societies to a 
 changing environment. I had mapped out a work, more, 
 I own, than was sufficient for a lifetime, in which inquiry 
 was to be made in the order and failure of order in societies, 
 their well-being and their disorders, and finally discovered 
 that such labour demanded a considerable knowledge of 
 several sciences, especially that of pathology, so that true 
 distinctions could be drawn between fatally morbid pro- 
 cesses and those morbid states which foreshadowed, and 
 indeed foretold, new social variations. In spite of the un- 
 happy fact that statesmen and politicians of all kinds 
 ignore science, it seemed to me that such a book might at 
 last prove useful even to them if its trend were understood, 
 and its doctrines appreciated, by a few critics. Yet, finding 
 that those who undertake unprofessional work must at 
 least subscribe to the first of the monastic vows, I put the 
 project aside with regret, although I believe that much 
 of this short volume will indicate to those interested in the
 
 x AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 complex phenomena of sociology many conclusions as to 
 social diagnosis which only extended labour could make 
 quite clear. Although I cannot carry out the labour 
 originally proposed, such investigations as I have been 
 able to make may throw a useful light on the funda- 
 mental principles of social adaptation, and also discover and 
 illuminate a number of vexed questions in biology. It 
 would be ungrateful of me if I did not acknowledge that 
 the impulse to attempt such a task sprang, not, as might 
 possibly be imagined, from the work of Herbert Spencer, 
 but from a little-known book by a great physician, who 
 never received his full meed of appreciation as a teacher. 
 I refer to the late Dr. Henry Gawen Sutton, once a colleague 
 of Sir Andrew Clark's at the London Hospital, whose 
 Lectures on Pathology, taken down by an ardent student, 
 contain a sounder criticism of life and more real wisdom 
 than a library of metaphysical treatises. His pathology 
 may, indeed, be out of date, but the knowledge that has 
 passed him by has not yet reached the height of his vision, 
 since his intuition, though sometimes curiously and 
 roughly phrased, often condensed into five words the life- 
 time's thinking of a true philosopher. 
 
 It is generally supposed that any one who is outside 
 the circle of professional investigation, and attempts to 
 enter it with no credentials, does so at the peril of entire 
 neglect if not of contumely. On this point I can only say, 
 and I do so with gratitude, that the encouragement received 
 from most of those best qualified to speak upon the subjects 
 treated has been most generous, while the exceptions to the 
 general rule are so few that the very fact of their existence
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE xi 
 
 accentuates the kindly and helpful attitude of the great 
 majority. Even in the cases where I have ventured to 
 differ from high authorities on obscure points which are 
 still unsettled, I have found them ready to listen and 
 eager to discover the possible value of any suggestion. 
 
 To subjects purely scientific I have thought it worth 
 while to add a short paper, originally published in Folk- 
 lore, which deals with the Thargelian Pharmakos. The 
 etymology and significance of the word Pharmakos, 
 and its relations to magic medicine, are very obscure, and 
 any possible elucidation of its meaning should be of interest 
 to such modern descendants of the ancient therapeutic 
 magicians as practise medicine with more modesty as 
 well as with more success. I cannot refrain from stating 
 here that the friend mentioned in the paper, to whom I 
 owed the knowledge of the existence of the Turkic word 
 vourmak, was the late Mr. Max Montesole, whose vast stores 
 of linguistic learning were always open to those who could 
 not aspire to equal his own, and whose death no one who 
 knew him will cease to deplore. With this acknowledgment 
 of gratitude I wish to combine my sincerest thanks for help 
 and encouragement to such men of science, who are 
 happily still at work, as Professor W. M. Bayliss, Professor 
 E. W. MacBride, Professor J. T. Cunningham, Professor 
 Marcus Hartog, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, and Professor 
 Benjamin Moore, while for help given me upon special 
 points I desire to add to these the names of Sir John Bland- 
 Sutton, Dr. Lambert Lack, and Mr. Sampson Handley. In 
 saying so much I by no means imply that what I ventured 
 to put forward always met with acceptance. On the
 
 xii AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 contrary, as may easily be imagined, it often encountered 
 severe, if kindly, criticism, from which I derived the greatest 
 benefit, even though it did not in some cases wholly convince 
 me. Last of all, but assuredly not least, I must thank 
 Professor Arthur Keith, whose almost unequalled general 
 knowledge has ever been at the service of all interested in 
 science, while his openness of mind and his readiness to 
 consider fresh views, whether orthodox or the reverse, are 
 as well known as they are remarkable and exemplary. 
 
 MORLEY ROBERTS.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGJC 
 
 FOREWORD BY PROF. ARTHUR KEITH, F.R.S. . T 
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE . . . . .be 
 
 CHAr. 
 
 I. METHOD IN SCIENCE ..... i 
 
 II. MALIGNANCY . . . . . .27 
 
 III. REPAIR IN EVOLUTION . . . .61 
 
 IV. INHIBITION AND THE CARDIAC VAGUS . . 93 
 V. THE THEORY OF IMMUNITY . . . .127 
 
 VI. THE CANNIBAL IN EVOLUTION . . . 143 
 
 VII. HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT . . .183 
 
 VIII. THE ORIGIN OF THERAPEUTIC BATHING . . 203 
 
 IX. THE PHYSIOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. . .227 
 
 X. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TRAINING AND ORGANIZATION 237 
 
 XI. THE PHARMAKOS AND MEDICINE . . . 255 
 
 APPENDIX A. THE INFECTION THEORY OF CANCER . 265 
 
 APPENDIX B. THE PERONEUS TERTJUS . . . 275 
 
 APPENDIX C. MARCUS TERENTIUS VARRO . 277 
 
 INDEX . . . . . . 279
 
 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN 
 BODY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 METHOD IN SCIENCE 
 
 THE general method of investigation, suggestion, 
 and proof used in this volume was originally 
 adopted as a means of studying social disorders and dis- 
 eases, for if society is an organism at all, on whatever 
 plane of development, it must be liable to disease, and 
 possess a physiology not remote from that seen at work 
 in other organisms of a lowly type. As the work progressed 
 many side-issues presented themselves, and it was seen that 
 if the notion of developmental diseases in man and other 
 animals had their analogues in society, by which we could 
 learn the nature of, and possible remedies for, social 
 disorders, these should present real analogies with bodily 
 morbid states. Such analogies certainly seemed highly 
 suggestive in the physiology of both kinds of organisms. 
 If, for instance, even the casual study of cerebral physio- 
 logy and neurology threw a light, however dim and un- 
 certain, upon the nature of politics and the methods by 
 which a national organism is directed during normal or 
 abnormal circumstances ; if the nature of the tropisms or 
 instincts of an animal, even of a high type, showed real
 
 2 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 resemblances to the instincts of a race ; if the higher associa- 
 tion centres, or " intellect," dealing with doubtful issues 
 over the pyramidal tract, showed a marked likeness to the 
 methods of trial and error necessary in investigating the 
 entirely unknown, it seemed quite probable that obscure 
 phenomena of " volition," instinct, and intellect could also 
 be approached with the light held up to us by social pheno- 
 mena themselves. On advancing further, it even appeared 
 possible, with such a conception to work by, that organic 
 diseases, especially those of development, might in a 
 measure be elucidated by the careful study of social pheno- 
 mena presenting somewhat similar errors of growth and 
 failures of order. It may, indeed, be said that this method 
 of working up from sociological phenomena, to those seen 
 in more advanced and orderly sciences, promises even better 
 results than the reverse process. By it we advance from 
 phenomena among which we live and act, and of which 
 we are a part, to those rendered obscure by their very 
 approach to economy of energy and perfection of machinery. 
 Whether we understand society or not, we can at least 
 draw some simple conclusions as to the ways in which 
 it works, and if it is granted, as a temporary hypothesis, 
 that the principles of organization are similar throughout 
 nature, it is obvious investigation may show that the 
 assumption is justified by the light thrown upon subjects 
 with which we are less familiar. It seems certain that 
 sufficient use has not been made of these weapons of 
 research. 
 
 To criticize accepted methods is to run counter both to 
 class and individual prejudices. This is true in science as 
 in politics, for to the conservatism which revolts against 
 change, there is added the fear that a new orientation of 
 thought may so discount accepted values as to disturb the
 
 METHOD IN SCIENCE 3 
 
 position attained by the orthodox. Nevertheless, from 
 time to time there arises the necessity of revising not only 
 accepted doctrines, but also the methods by which they 
 are reached. It seems as if such an hour had now come 
 round, for in many of the sciences the accumulation of facts 
 long ago passed reasonable limits, while those who have an 
 insatiable passion for their collection display little energy 
 in putting them into order. Moreover, they appear to 
 resent, or at the least to deprecate, any such attempt on 
 the part of others. According to many " now " is never the 
 accepted time for a new hypothesis, although true method 
 is the application and adaptation of the whole apparatus of 
 reasoning to any given problem. Little has been done to 
 elucidate it, but it surely implies the use of every weapon of 
 analysis in order to avoid all possible waste of available 
 energy. For any advance in thought implies an intelligent 
 logical use of foresight and surmise, and without them 
 science must become at last a mere rubbish heap. Over- 
 insistence on facts and perpetual discouragement of think- 
 ing atrophy the imagination, without which the most 
 diligent seeker after truth must presently perish in the pit 
 he has digged for himself. Such resemble a man who 
 makes bricks, and resents the architect and builder using 
 them. This revolt against acknowledged logical methods 
 has sometimes had its justification, but with the general 
 progress of knowledge the life of a radically unsound hypo- 
 thesis is usually a very short one. If Herbert Spencer's 
 idea of a tragedy was a hypothesis killed by a fact, such 
 tragedies must grow rater if it is recognized that know- 
 ledge is only knowledge, and a fact only a fact, when both 
 agree with what is certain in other sciences, and contradict 
 no general principles. 
 
 The evil results of extreme specialism, combined with a
 
 4 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 refusal to appeal to such principles, can be seen in almost 
 every branch of scientific work. In private a professor of 
 pathology may, and too often does, pour scorn upon the 
 labours of the physiologist, which looks much as if he 
 believed that the right method of teaching shipbuilding 
 was to study wrecks upon the beach. Again, the physio- 
 logist, aware though he be of the pathologist's failing, 
 is yet apt to take a similar view as regards biology, while 
 the biologist himself, whose work should necessitate an 
 appreciation of all that appertains to all life, completes the 
 vicious circle by ignoring what has been done by students of 
 disease. So much cannot be denied by those even slightly 
 acquainted with scientific, and especially medical, habits of 
 thought. And yet, in spite of this, there are those who 
 know that science cannot be so divided, and that none, who 
 aspires to more than a hodman's work, is properly equipped 
 without a general knowledge of all the sciences related to 
 his own. This may seem a hard saying ; but it proposes 
 no more than should be attainable by those with imagina- 
 tion and intellectual curiosity, and it admits, even pre- 
 supposes, that he must be as ignorant of special details in 
 such sciences as his fellow- workers must be of his own. 
 
 It is by co-ordination of knowledge that advances are 
 made. Yet it is common to sneer at the very word " co- 
 ordination." It may be true that the solitary pioneer, or 
 specialist, not seldom hits upon precious facts. But he 
 more often shares the fate of the ignorant prospector who, 
 by ignoring geology, wastes his labour and dies in a wilder- 
 ness where no gold can be found. The proper method for 
 any scientific man is to employ all knowledge whatsoever, 
 in order to attain such a degree of insight into the value 
 of others' observations as well as his own as to be able to 
 use and test both. To grasp general conclusions in what
 
 METHOD IN SCIENCE 5 
 
 we know, and to ignore them in what we are ignorant of, is 
 intellectual anarchism. 
 
 It may be said that every one admits that general 
 laws apply in all things, and that to insist on the fact is 
 both otiose and absurd. A belief, however, may produce 
 small results if it is not put into practice. Every one, of 
 course, recognizes that nothing whatever occurs anywhere 
 which can contradict the laws of energetics. And yet 
 vitalism flourishes. Almost all will agree that chemistry 
 is capable of becoming in time an exact science, and while 
 yet inexact, has general laws which some day must be shown 
 to exist, even in the realm of what those, who wish to avoid 
 the connotational pitfalls of the word " mind," may be 
 permitted to call " mentation." But, nevertheless, many 
 are prone to argue that conclusions reached in sociology, 
 for instance, can have no meaning for a physiologist, 
 biologist, chemist, or physicist. Though general laws are 
 in action through all nature, their opinion is that any 
 argument founded upon them is an argument from analogy, 
 and a mere illustration. Resting, as they believe securely, 
 on the absurd dictum that it is dangerous to argue from 
 analogy, they refuse to draw any conclusion, even a ten- 
 tative one, by its use, being ignorant of the value placed 
 on such reasoning by a logician like John Stuart Mill, and 
 forgetful that analogy is pure, if incomplete, induction. 
 For it can only be built on facts. 
 
 The bulk of this book was written, and the suggested 
 methods employed, before I became aware that in one place, 
 at least, Herbert Spencer had suggested a way in which 
 sociological problems might give clues to the elucidation 
 of physiological problems. I may, perhaps, be excused for 
 not having read his paper on " Transcendental Physiology " 
 till lately. Indeed, a great deal of his physiological know-
 
 6 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 ledge seems inadequate even for his day, and perhaps shows 
 signs that the facts, or supposed facts, were found for him 
 by assistants, and never properly considered. Whether this 
 is true or not, he did suggest that we might not only work 
 forward from the economy of the animal to the social 
 organism, but that, in selected cases, analogies drawn from 
 the body politic might sometimes be used to elucidate 
 physiological problems. He says : " Hints may be ex- 
 pected if nothing more. And thus we venture to think 
 that the Inductive Method, usually employed alone by 
 most physiologists, may not only derive important assist- 
 ance from the Deductive Method, but may further be 
 supplemented by the Sociological Method." He does not 
 seem to have suggested elsewhere that much more than 
 hints were to be looked for, or that the method might be 
 employed not only in physiology, but also in biology and 
 pathology. In no place can I find it said that it might 
 prove of assistance in discovering how general principles 
 worked in any science whatsoever, if each problem were 
 worked backwards and forwards from one science to 
 another. 
 
 There is no need to go deeply into the question of ana- 
 logical reasoning. It is sufficient to point out that, used 
 with caution, it is the most rapidly fruitful form of all 
 ratiocination. Maine called it, "in the study of juris- 
 prudence, the most valuable of instruments," even when he 
 uttered a caution against its premature employment. 
 For any aseful analogy must show sufficient points of com- 
 mon likeness between two sets of observed facts to suggest 
 that a general law rules in both. A true analogy is not 
 merely a fanciful likeness, such as may be made out of one 
 point. Although Mill wrote : " There is no analogy, however 
 faint, which may not be of the utmost value in suggesting
 
 METHOD IN SCIENCE 7 
 
 experiments or observations that may lead to more general 
 conclusions," there is no need to push it to an absurd 
 extreme, as Herbert Spencer himself did, when he endorsed 
 Liebig's comparison of blood corpuscles, as a circulating 
 medium, to money. But from one point of likeness we may 
 proceed to two or three, or as many as we will, until there 
 is complete identity in all essentials. To dismiss an 
 analogy, in which there are many points of resemblance, as 
 pure fancy is unwise, to say the least of it, since it stimulates 
 the imagination in the liveliest way. Most advances in 
 thought are made by the imaginative, who yet hold steadily 
 to the view that the most ingenious hypothesis cannot 
 become theory unless it is in accordance with the greater 
 general laws of the more inclusive sciences, and at last 
 enables us to prophesy about unknown phenomena, and 
 to put into order disconnected facts. Used in this way 
 the discovery of suggestive analogies is the parent of real 
 progress, and it ought not to be necessary to say so. If it 
 were not necessary we should see the method used, and 
 students, young or old, would not be so greatly burdened 
 with mere isolated observations. 
 
 If, then, we admit that general laws are everywhere the 
 same in their working, however much obscured by the com- 
 plexities of the less inclusive sciences, and allow that 
 analogies tried by such laws are a legitimate field for the 
 scientific imagination, we must conclude that observed 
 sequences in one science ought to be discoverable in all 
 others. And if certain sequences are clear in one and 
 obscure in another, while there are still sufficient points of 
 likeness to suggest a like kind of explanation in the obscure 
 set, we may legitimately conclude that we are face to face 
 with the same general laws. 
 
 To illustrate such points is not altogether easy, since
 
 8 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 their comprehension depends entirely upon a fairly adequate 
 apparatus in more sciences than one. This is not common, 
 and the very possession of such knowledge seems to render 
 its owner suspect in the eyes of the exclusive specialist. 
 It is easy for him to show that upon recondite and very 
 special points no one but himself can be sufficiently 
 informed. But when we reflect that on these very points 
 few specialists agree, though they are at one on many 
 general principles, we can afford to discount such criticism. 
 It is illegitimate to call any one a sciolist because he is not 
 conversant with every obscure and debatable point, since 
 the real weakness of the sciolist is eagerness to insist on 
 small points, and to fail in the grasp of great ones. Without 
 demanding of men of science any general philosophical 
 theory, we may still ask them to admit that it is the greatest 
 privilege of any worker, when surveying the whole field of 
 knowledge, to discern in it real likenesses. It has been 
 said that the highest type of intellect is that which discovers 
 likenesses, while the second order is apt to insist upon 
 differences. If this is so it must be admitted that the highest 
 type is not common. To hold the balance between rash 
 generalization and a refusal to generalize at all is not easy, 
 and it may be supposed that the qualities which enable 
 any one to do so can seldom be found in those deeply 
 committed to specialism. Yet the ranging of phenomena 
 under superior headings, which is real " explanation," cannot 
 be achieved unless likenesses are seen where none appear 
 on the surface. The history of science shows that any 
 new discovery or generalization has usually been met with 
 hostility by the best informed on special facts. If the work 
 of Harvey had been dependent for acceptance on the vote 
 of specialists it would assuredly have been rejected And 
 if it is now said that the phenomena seen in any society,
 
 METHOD IN SCIENCE 9 
 
 considered as a closed system or organism, can throw light 
 upon special points of physiology, pathology, and biology, 
 or even on debatable points in physics, such a statement 
 will not easily meet with assent. But the fact remains 
 that those who reject it still admit that the laws of physics 
 rule everywhere, and that the doctrines of energetics can be 
 seen in whatever place work is being done. To admit so 
 much, and refuse to see that in all phenomena there must be 
 discoverable essential points of likeness, is a contradiction. 
 And to say, even if there are real likenesses which enable 
 us to use such a method as a key to discovery, that the 
 time is not yet come, or the knowledge acquired, for such 
 an organon to be used, is simply an assertion without 
 proof. To go on merely accumulating facts, and we must 
 remember that no " fact " is a fact until it is made part 
 of a whole, is after all labourer's work, and within the power 
 of any one with diligence. We may reflect curiously on the 
 truth that the national neglect of science is again repeated 
 by many men of science themselves when they refuse to 
 recognize the place of fresh thought in their work, or, by 
 reason of their conservatism, place more than reasonable 
 difficulties in the way of those who try to co-ordinate their 
 observations. 
 
 The logical method here advocated, if it has its dangers, 
 is of peculiar suggestiveness. To apply observations in a 
 well-known science to one in a state of less order, of which 
 the genera] laws seem still unknown, requires, it would 
 seem, less skill than the art of selecting certain points in 
 the obscurer study, which show that some general law is at 
 work, and using them to solve problems in the more 
 advanced science. To put this as clearly as possible, it 
 may be said that while sociologists need find no difficulty 
 in applying with success the analogies of bodily disorders,
 
 10 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 pathologists, without a special logical apparatus, will easily 
 go astray in using social phenomena as a guide to the ex- 
 planation of disease. But used with care, the method may 
 have great results. We are not confined to applying it to 
 physiology alone, nor need we seek real analogies in nothing 
 else than the social organism. If we get rid of the artificial 
 barriers between all the sciences, we can use biology to ex- 
 plain pathology and pathology to explain biology, provided 
 nothing assumed contradicts chemical or physical general- 
 izations. Such a process of regression may seem as obscure 
 as it will appear unsound to the over-cautious, but it is 
 possible that those who are weary of the prevalent method 
 of seeking to explain the facts of any science within its 
 own boundaries, such as is seen in bacteriologists without 
 any zeal for colloidal chemistry, will, perhaps, be inclined to 
 welcome any extension of Spencer's suggestion. To choose 
 short illustrations is not easy, and the best I know are 
 supplied in the body of this book. In this place I shall 
 endeavour to use the method more as a means of suggestion 
 than a method of proof, and shall apply it briefly to mitosis, 
 budding, the nature of the cell-nucleus, and to other 
 problems of heredity. 
 
 When dealing so briefly with the inter-relations of the 
 sciences, it is impossible to do more than make suggestions. 
 Yet, even at length, it would not always be easy to show 
 the pathologist that he should recognize what help physio- 
 logy may give him. I have been assured by a very 
 great physiologist that his notion of pathology was that 
 it tended to death, and need not be taken into account. He 
 had not considered the possible value of repair in evolution, 
 in spite of the obvious truth that in all branches of life, 
 thought, and mechanical invention, breakdowns lead to 
 new contrivances. The biologist, too, may refuse, and indeed
 
 METHOD IN SCIENCE 11 
 
 does refuse, to consider the possibility of social phenomena 
 throwing light upon the problems of heredity mentioned 
 above, and the transmission of acquired or altered char- 
 acteristics. It is now orthodox in biology to adopt a 
 modified Weismannism, and no one would be more dis- 
 inclined to ask whether, in the evolution of societies and 
 their heredity, we can find anything to support or under- 
 mine the germ-plasm theory, than an orthodox believer. 
 Nor would he allow us to ask whether there are sociological 
 phenomena which suggest that altered characteristics can 
 be transmitted. Before answering, or attempting to answer, 
 either question as an example of method, it may be pointed 
 out that, even with the example of J. T. Cunningham's work 
 on hormones before them, most of the unorthodox biolo- 
 gists are almost as neglectful of the help in the'elucidation of 
 evolutionary problems given them by physiologists, who 
 have worked on the secretions and catalytic functions 
 of the endocrines, as their orthodox brethren. In speaking 
 thus of the biologist it must not be assumed that he alone 
 is indifferent to other work. The orthodox school of psycho- 
 logists, directly descended from the introspectional philo- 
 sopher and the theologian, are equally opposed to the bio- 
 logical school of sociologists. We can, in fact, find no school 
 without such " idols." In attempting what is, perhaps, 
 the vain attempt of their destruction, the most simple 
 example I can choose to illustrate the method advocated is 
 what I believe to be a real analogy between the problems 
 of heredity in biology and sociology. I may therefore 
 be permitted to use a portion of an unfinished paper on 
 " The Possible Mechanism of Transmission," with a view 
 to demonstrating anew the obvious fact that, since general 
 laws do obtain in the universe, their particular application 
 in all cases must have essential points of resemblance.
 
 12 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 The function of the endocrine glands, in their relation 
 to general heredity, has been studied far too little. It is 
 true that Keith has explained popularly their probable 
 r61e with regard to racial types, but generally speaking 
 the hasty generalization of Weismann, upheld by many 
 whose record with regard to the dangers of premature 
 hypothesis might, perhaps, have safeguarded them, has been 
 a deadening influence upon biological speculation. And, 
 indeed, even those who have studied environment in the 
 belief that direct adaptation occurs, have been too apt to 
 speak of its influence in general terms, rather than to 
 inquire into the means by which it modifies an organism. 
 There seems to be no biologist who has properly grasped the 
 whole possibilities of catalysts as " tools " or instruments 
 by which the functions associated with protoplasm can 
 be activated, increased and, in certain cases, inhibited, or 
 has laid stress on the way in which all that they " create " 
 can once more give rise to other like but more complex 
 instruments. Instead of regarding protoplasm as modified 
 by the tools it employs, we hear of different kinds of pro- 
 toplasm. The very expression is an unverified hypothesis, 
 and ignores all that has been done on catalytic action by 
 the physiologists. Such assumptions differ very little 
 from those made by the vitalists who explain life by vitalism, 
 and vitalism by life. But when it is seen that proto- 
 plasm may, and actually does, alter in accordance with the 
 non-living organic tools it uses, just as races differ in accord- 
 ance with their " tools " or catalysts, it seems obvious 
 enough that varying organic phenomena follow each other 
 in accordance with the original catalytic tools employed, 
 which, in due order, are specialized by embryonic or highly 
 adapted glands such as the endocrines. For, as some may 
 be lost, so new ones can be acquired, and some again can
 
 METHOD IN SCIENCE 13 
 
 be modified in changing internal or external environments. 
 Without the help of chemistry and physiology such a con- 
 ception could hardly have been reached, though a realistic, 
 not verbal, interpretation of Weismannism might have led 
 to the view that " determinants " were catalytic in nature. 
 Since we now recognize such a morphogenetic character of 
 catalysts and hormones, we need assume no other instru- 
 ments until it is shown definitely that they do not and 
 cannot satisfy the equation of life. If biologists had not 
 ignored pathology by following Darwin's lead blindly when 
 he assumed, without a shadow of proof, that unfavourable 
 variations must be without effect on evolution, they might 
 have inquired eagerly into the causes of disease, and have 
 found that much of it must inevitably be attributed to 
 factors, or the want of them, originally taken up from the 
 environment. The simplest example is, perhaps, that of 
 iron, and the latest recognized that of accessory food factors, 
 fat or water soluble. 
 
 If then the success or failure of morphogenesis is to be 
 attributed to such " tools " employed in a particular ener- 
 gizing field of the environment, it is easy to imagine, and 
 even to prove, that they must go over in the sperm or egg- 
 cell, or be re-acquired from the yolk, or from the parent 
 during gestation. Darwin's pangenes can thus be trans- 
 lated into the language of hereditary morphogenetic 
 catalysts. 
 
 Such a statement leads to an inquiry concerning the 
 nucleus of a cell. To what extent do biologists believe that 
 it is alive ? They write of the nucleo-plasm as if it were, 
 but all the physical phenomena of mitosis suggest that it is 
 not of the complex molecular structure furnished with 
 reversible catalysts dominating and directing anabolic and 
 catabolic processes which we call " life," but that it is com-
 
 14 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 posed of chemical substances, which are determinants of 
 future morphogenesis. Such a view is in keeping with 
 Darwin's pangenes, and does not contradict Hartog's 
 physical mito-kinetic interpretation of the mitotic cell- 
 fields. 
 
 If, then, by following the suggestions of chemistry and 
 physiology, rather than by relying purely on limited experi- 
 ment and the microscope, we finally rid biology of the view 
 that there is true nucleo-plasm, and proceed on the assump- 
 tion that the nucleus is a varying vacuole, or " tool-shop," 
 and food store-house in which catalysts, or determinants, 
 or activators, are kept, and from which they may be drawn 
 by various physical causes, use is being made of at least 
 three sciences, or four if we include physics, and we seem 
 on a path likely to lead to result. At least we shall not 
 ignore the environment, since it is, and must be, the field 
 from which all morphogenetic materials were originally 
 drawn, however complex they appear when used, com- 
 bined, and specialized by special organs, themselves the 
 earlier results of similar catalysts working in the embryo. 
 
 Yet another science may be used to help towards a 
 possible demonstration. An illustration is not a proof, 
 but, as suggested before, when it contains a larger number 
 of points of likeness it ceases to be a mere illustration. 
 The observed phenomena then seem peculiarly related to 
 each other, and if the illustration deals with familiar 
 phenomena the previously inexplicable problem may have 
 an intense light thrown upon it. It was such considerations, 
 combined with the scientific postulate that all biologic 
 phenomena, on whatever plane of development, follow the 
 same laws, which led me to seek in sociology and social 
 life some real illustrations of budding and mitosis, being 
 convinced that if found, they would be of a similar nature.
 
 METHOD IN SCIENCE 15 
 
 It seemed to me that such biologic parallels were to be 
 discovered in the phenomena of colonization, especially in 
 examples of definite emigration parties in different vessels. 
 The departure of a portion of the community carrying its 
 own tools and weapons is obviously a real illustration of 
 budding, and indicates far more than, on a casual view, is 
 seen upon the surface. Provided the new environment is 
 not very different from the old one, the new civilization will 
 follow closely on that of the old. But when the environ- 
 ment changes, as new materials are discovered, the form will 
 and must change. A colonial " bud " which discovers iron 
 and makes weapons and tools from it will, in accordance 
 with its environment, and the stresses of life, become either 
 an agricultural, a hunting, or a fighting people. If tools 
 are catalysts, and catalysts are tools, we are surely in posses- 
 sion of some hint as to the mechanism of the transmission 
 of altered and acquired characteristics, and all the allied 
 sciences have lent their aid to the conception. 
 
 It is, however, in another illustration that we can best 
 discern the meaning and mechanism of mitosis. What can 
 be a better illustration of an extruded zygote than a ship 
 carrying a party of males and females, and furnished with 
 all the tools familiar to the mother-country in order to 
 cope with what is expected to furnish a suitable, and fairly 
 like, environment ? In such a vessel we have the human 
 protoplasm (on its plane probably no more complex than a 
 " unit of life "), and a definite provision of tools and weapons 
 for carrying on the communal life of the new unit. On 
 arrival at its destination we observe at once the influence of 
 the environment. It may be deadly, the " cell " may die, it 
 maybe wrecked, or it may never proceed to further develop- 
 ment and division. But supposing "the environment is 
 good, the new community, with the help of its tools, will
 
 16 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 repeat in all essentials the life- history of the parent. If, 
 on the other hand, it is not so like the mother-country in 
 agricultural prospects, but more fruitful in game, we should 
 get a hunting community. The iron ploughs would be 
 turned into spears. Furthermore, we must remark that 
 the nature of the new organism depends very largely on 
 what was in the ship, and its nature. If unfertilized, i.e, 
 without men, it must either die or get fertilized by native 
 males. In that case the " tools," or catalysts of both 
 parties would be utilized according to the common ability 
 of both. There would arise a different species, and a 
 further budding or colonization would carry away a new 
 set of morphogenetic materials. 
 
 Provided, however, that the ship was " fertilized," an 
 iron or wooden ship might develop two different kinds of 
 civilization, especially if they were wrecked, and the tools 
 of mitotic material lost. But without disaster a state would 
 develop in accordance with its tools and seeds and weapons. 
 There is no need to be led away from the physical side of 
 the problem to that complex of physics and bio-chemistry 
 which we call psychology. The knowledge and traditions 
 of the colonists are its protoplasmic character, which again 
 has been determined, and is, the result of long ages of other 
 tools. That is to say, the character is the tools used plus 
 the protoplasmic energy. 
 
 On this analysis we see how transmission of un- 
 altered characters takes place, and even the Wies- 
 mannists may agree. But, furthermore, we observe that 
 race characteristics and habits and customs are modified 
 by the environment, and that a new metal, a new 
 cereal or root or fruit, may not only bring about 
 modifications, but be transmitted. Some real thing, 
 tool or catalyst, is transmitted and carried away
 
 METHOD IN SCIENCE 17 
 
 when further budding or mitosis occurs. Without push- 
 ing these examples to extremes, it is worth showing 
 that phenomena, strictly and curiously analogous with 
 mitosis may occur. If a new colony gets too big for its 
 environment, and is " determined " (that is, driven by cir- 
 cumstances to enforced behaviour) to divide, what then 
 happens ? Stock is taken of the weapons, the tools, the 
 food. It is conceivable that all the tools must be assembled 
 and divided. We should in such a case get something like 
 a mitotic pattern. It would be rude and rough compared 
 with patterns in cells, just as cell patterns are probably 
 rude and rough compared with an experimental electro- 
 static pattern of mito-kinesis, where pure physical pheno- 
 mena are seen undisturbed. And yet it would be pattern 
 in so far as it was a new special order. Some celestial 
 observer, with a powerful microscope, would see peculiar 
 phenomena of arrangement and division, not to be under- 
 stood or even guessed at until actual division occurred. 
 The human " plasm " would divide : the " nuclear " 
 matter would be parted, and there would presently be two 
 organisms where there had previously been but one. 
 
 And once more the environment would play its part. 
 Some new discovery might make a new race. After genera- 
 tions it is conceivable that such a race, furnished with all 
 sorts of acquired means and methods, might find its 
 ancestors as barbarian as we find many primitive races 
 and, in its turn, would send forth colonies to acquire 
 further characteristics, or to lose those which it pos- 
 sessed, and revert to the savage or embryonic state. 
 
 If, as Mill declared, an analogy is an incomplete 
 induction, its incompleteness can be compensated 
 for by the discovery of other analogies, so that in 
 the end we approach, and may practically reach, com-
 
 18 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 plete induction. I am little concerned with the techni- 
 cal logic of this or any other argument, since school 
 logic is but the skeleton of living reasoning. Live 
 reasoning is the art of persuasion, and usually consists in 
 the choice of examples which reinforce each other so that 
 a contradictory conclusion seems improbable. The view 
 taken as to the functions in development of catalysts, 
 or tools, organic or inorganic, can obviously be supported 
 by the reverse phenomena of involution, disease, and death. 
 If growth depends on the embryonic possession, and later 
 differentiation or acquirement of catalysts, old age and 
 decay as obviously depend on an increasing failure to manu- 
 facture, acquire, or use them. According to Child, if I 
 interpret him rightly, degeneration commences at birth, or 
 even earlier. As shown by the decreasing heart-rate, 
 there is a gradual slackening of metabolism possibly due to 
 the strain on the organism of manufacturing its own com- 
 plex catalysts, and dealing with its own food. Little by 
 little the strain increases, until the organism shows signs 
 of failure, and there is a loss of catalytic balance with 
 concomitant loss of activity. We have to account for the 
 diversion of available energy, and to say no more than that 
 it fails naturally is no explanation. Opotherapy, or the 
 exhibition of activating or inhibiting drugs, may prolong 
 the drama ; but the end comes when the body can no longer 
 be spurred on by what it makes or ingests. 
 
 There is also in the phenomena of a serious or fatal 
 disease an inverted parallelism to those of growth and life. 
 Infection, or " shock," whatever that may be, affects the 
 functions of every tissue and gland, and many classic cases 
 of " fever " may be mapped out by symptoms caused, not 
 by the infection, but by prematurely vitiated secretions, 
 and the consequent loss of catalytic power to deal with the
 
 METHOD IN SCIENCE 19 
 
 disease, with nutriment itself, or with excretions. It seems, 
 then, that in birth, life, disease, and death itself, what we 
 witness is the use, acquisition, or failure and gradual loss of 
 " acquirements." 
 
 When we consider that in all inductive arguments what- 
 ever we can only attain a high degree of probability, a 
 proposition put very clearly by Jevons, it assuredly seems 
 that catalysts can be acquired, as they can even more 
 certainly be lost. Such a theory is not only of value in 
 biology and the ordinary course of practical medicine, but 
 may probably be employed with advantage in the study of 
 the origins of disease lately commenced at St. Andrews by 
 Mackenzie. His research will undoubtedly deal with the 
 future effect on the youthful organism of the passing ail- 
 ments of children, the lasting results of early innutrition 
 or want of food factors, and into the probability of such 
 disorders as periodontitis having early undiscovered 
 stages which affect the whole metabolic or catabolic 
 machinery of the patient. It should not be forgotten that 
 studies of this kind were suggested by Galton. If con- 
 sidered analogical reasoning should thus tend to support 
 the intuition and clinical knowledge of the physician it 
 cannot be disdained. It is obvious, and should need no 
 proof, that the imagination, controlled by knowledge, is an 
 integral part of the logic of discovery. It is the Mount 
 Pisgah of science. 
 
 Since I hope to have shown with some plausibility that 
 such obscure phenomena as mitosis and the vexed question 
 of transmission of acquired and altered characteristics can 
 be illustrated, and made clearer by the examples just given, 
 and since such considerations threw light on the nature of 
 a cell-nucleus, and enabled us to think of it as a store-house, 
 while we look on catalysts as tools picked up on the
 
 20 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 path of evolution to enable protoplasm to do better and 
 quicker work, it seems at last that such problems as 
 variations of all kinds, healthy or morbid, may really find 
 solutions in the study of sociology as a mixed biological, 
 physiological, and pathological science. And since all 
 developmental diseases are truly variations from the average 
 or normal type, it looks as if in the future such a study might 
 enable the pathologist to discern the real nature of malig- 
 nancy, and all the disorders connected with the endocrine 
 organs, which are the regulators of development and orderly 
 growth. No study of any science coming finally under the 
 inclusive head of biology can leave us in doubt of the 
 entire interdependence of all parts of an organism, 
 however much such interdependence is masked during 
 normal or static conditions. But when there is a grave 
 state of disorder these relations become obvious. It is 
 so in a " body," and it is so in a state. 
 
 During the late condition of Europe such phenomena 
 were to be seen very clearly. Variation after variation 
 followed on stress, and as the nations responded to the strain 
 put upon them, it was seen how energy was diverted from 
 its normal channels and poured, regardless of economic 
 considerations, into new and enlarged growths of offensive 
 organs. There is no need to labour these points. It must 
 have been obvious to every one that we were then (as we 
 are now) in the presence of biological factors dealing with 
 variation, and likely to present, if kept in unrestrained 
 action, all the phenomena of developmental disease. For 
 the essence of all development is symbiotic equilibrium, 
 balance, and symmetry. Without, in this place, applying 
 biology any further to the study of the social organism, it 
 may be asked whether such phenomena do not enable us 
 to grasp, if not in detail, at least in their broad outlines, the
 
 METHOD IN SCIENCE 21 
 
 nature of the bodily disorders we know as developmental. 
 For all such disorders are either failures of growth or over- 
 growth, and at the back of them is the hierarchy of the 
 glandular system, each member of which is like a State 
 department claiming so much energy, money, and men, as a 
 contribution towards the active production of the necessary 
 organs, or tools, by which a nation meets the stresses of 
 the environment by increased growth on one line or new 
 growth on another. The functions of stress, failure, and 
 repair, which are as relevant to societies as to animals, 
 are considered in another part of this book. 
 
 Thinking upon such lines, and bearing in mind the fact 
 that during abnormal stress there is a tendency to reju- 
 venescence, marked by the jettison of old ideas, old men, 
 and even of the most sacred customs, since by such a jetti- 
 son the activity of a cell's or State's protoplasm is thereby 
 increased just as it is hindered by the reverse process 
 we reach the conception that such a process can be over- 
 done, and a state of protoplasmic activity attained which is 
 embryonic, or anarchic. No observer of war phenomena 
 can have failed to observe the tendency to weakness in 
 central control, accompanied, and indeed measured, as it 
 was by the increased and violent activity of various depart- 
 ments of State responding according to the nature of the 
 stresses laid upon them. If central (or shall I say glan- 
 dular ?) control by inhibition had broken down, we should 
 have seen phenomena on a parallel with those of malignant 
 tissues. Perpetual stimulation or irritation by itself tends 
 to overgrowth of the bodily or social tissue or organ in- 
 volved ; but when such a tendency is not controlled by other 
 tissues or organs, there is a tendency to invasiveness or 
 destructive parasitism. Such observations seem to show 
 that carcinomas and allied phenomena have their analogues
 
 22 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 in a social body, and preclude us from thinking of them by 
 themselves, or attributing them to special, rather than to 
 general, causes. It is, moreover, impossible not to notice 
 the connection beween such phenomena and the doctrines of 
 energetics. When only so much free energy is to be shared 
 among co-partners, its over-consumption by one implies 
 not only over-activity in one place, but starvation in 
 another, with a resulting loss of balance. 
 
 Such particular consideration of certain unsolved 
 problems leads directly to an analysis of any organism as a 
 whole, and as interdependent parts. When taken as a 
 whole, it can once again be regarded as part of a wider, more 
 inclusive organism ; but to regard it on any plane as com- 
 posed of parts, forces upon us the fact that they exist in 
 symbiosis as separate cell states. Symbiosis is, however, 
 usually construed as mutual help, and this is only a partial 
 statement of the facts, unless the organism is static in 
 static circumstances, that is, unless it is perfectly " adapted " 
 to an unchanging environment. Such a condition is ideal 
 " anarchism," a state of affairs in which each unit functions 
 freely according to its nature, and in no way interferes with 
 other units, since it lacks any qualities, or secretions, which 
 exercise irritating or depressing functions on its neighbours. 
 Such a form of life, while ideally possible, has probably 
 never been attained, and ordinary symbiotic equilibrium is 
 only reached practically in organisms of which the parts are 
 not only helpful among each other, but are actually ' ' hostile ' ' 
 in other ways. The use of the word " hostile " is, of 
 course, no more than verbal shorthand to express the fact 
 that each part has its own work, and in many cases its own 
 frontiers, or limiting membrane. This is a rough state- 
 ment of the biological conception of any organism, and we 
 can only conceive equilibrium in such a symbiotic com-
 
 METHOD IN SCIENCE 23 
 
 munity as a result reached by, and in spite of, internal 
 stresses. In such an organism each part is excited or 
 inhibited, or both, by the secretions of the other parts. 
 Any secretion is an excretion, but these excretions have 
 found their uses, either as activators or catalysts, or as 
 direct depressants or inhibitors. That the biological 
 conception is universally true of all organisms is suggested 
 not only in biology proper, but by the hostility, open or 
 subdued, which characterizes classes in society, and it 
 suggests, and in many cases supplies, a real key to the com- 
 prehension of developmental disease. As was suggested 
 above, it throws a light upon the effects of diseases other 
 than developmental, since death frequently occurs from 
 an indirect effect on parts of the organism, some of which are 
 destroyed, and others stimulated. When recovery occurs, 
 it often happens that the grave disturbance of a violent 
 infection is found to have disturbed the symbiotic life of 
 the organism, and by reducing some part, or gland, to partial 
 impotence, either by excitation or inhibition, leads to later 
 failures of development or to lethal overgrowth. We can 
 thus imagine a slight organic " social " disturbance in a 
 human being leading directly to acromegaly or other 
 disorders of the pituitary, or to myxcedema, Graves' 
 Disease, and all the possible effects of hypo- or hyper- 
 thyroidism. 
 
 In carrying the analogical method so far, I am well aware 
 that it will be said that such suggestions are without 
 foundation, that they are true but unimportant, or that 
 they are important and that every one knew them long ago. 
 But I have been more impressed by a single fact than I 
 shall be by all such criticisms combined. When I suggested 
 to an eminent pathologist that, without a considerable 
 knowledge of biology, very much of pathology could not be
 
 24 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 properly understood or explained, he replied, possibly not 
 without humour, that he had no time for the course of study 
 I was so good as to map out for him. I accepted the rebuke 
 in good part, but could not help thinking what a lamentable 
 thing it was for scientific discovery that each worker in 
 any particular branch of research apparently hastened to 
 forget the very nature of explanation, which is the intro- 
 duction of order in all forms of knowledge, and the arrange- 
 ment of every fact under the headings of more inclusive 
 sciences, so that each phenomenon can be seen from all 
 possible points of view. 
 
 It was before remarked that there is much well-founded 
 complaint of the neglect of science in England ; but the truth 
 is that none neglect it like many scientific men who might 
 be supposed to know better. It is not only so in the 
 sciences directly connected with medicine, but in all others. 
 In no psychology whatsoever can any recognition of the 
 valuable work done by Robertson Smith, Tylor, and Fraser 
 be observed. While the introspective philosopher digs in 
 the morasses of his own mind, and with each shovelful 
 proclaims some individual accident or hasty explanation as 
 a universal truth, the more advanced experimentalist in 
 mentation relies mainly upon the compilation of statistics. 
 But both alike ignore the light thrown upon the workings of 
 the brains of our far-off ancestors, as seen in thought crystal- 
 lizing into custom, myth, and ritual. The very logicians, 
 who ex hypothesi are exponents of reason, prefer, so it seems, 
 to dally in the ruined schools of mediaeval philosophy, 
 rather than study the natural logic of the mind of man as 
 shown in every branch of folk-lore. There has been little 
 endeavour, or none that has met with favour, to analyse the 
 natural hostility of group to group, such as is seen exempli- 
 fied in " the tribal spirit," into its constituents, nor has it
 
 METHOD IN SCIENCE 25 
 
 been recognized that in every organism, or even manu- 
 factured mechanism, the facts of hostile symbiosis are 
 fundamental. Only thus can we link the very passions 
 of politics and all strife to proved law. In another place I 
 have endeavoured, as far as possible, to use anthropology 
 as a key not only to unlock past history, and to elucidate 
 possible factors of human progress, but to show that certain 
 conditions were the true parents of all the enlarged animal 
 instincts and powers of inference seen in the modern human 
 brain. It is easy to fail, but it is a duty to try, and while 
 endeavouring to map out the ancient paths of evolution, we 
 must surely avail ourselves of every scientific lamp however 
 dim. 
 
 If the rough suggestions of this paper carry any weight, 
 and suggest reflections upon method, it will certainly be 
 admitted that students have rarely taken sufficient ad- 
 vantage of the truth, that not only is evolution going on all 
 around them in every phenomenon they observe, but that 
 processes vitally similar to those they seek to explain are 
 this day occurring in the great social organism of which they 
 are a part. Without hope of moving those in whom evolu- 
 tion has done its work, and involution has begun, it may be 
 said that to seek to solve the problems of heredity without 
 taking serious notice of the fact that societies give birth to 
 and bud off from other societies, and to rely mainly on 
 microscopic research when great macroscopic phenomena of 
 the same kind are within arm's-length of the worker, appears 
 almost ridiculous. If Lyell worked on the hypothesis that 
 the observed daily changes in the surface of the earth, 
 though due only to causes that seemed too slight to consider, 
 might account for the world as we see it, and even help to 
 prophesy results in future ages, we may say that in all we 
 observe or experience are keys to the problems which other
 
 26 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 sciences than geology seek to solve. For it may be repeated, 
 even again, that general laws are indeed general, and that 
 each special case is but that universal clad in its peculiar 
 garment of individual particulars. Necessary as the study 
 of these may be to some special application in life, it is by 
 putting them aside, and by divesting truth of its accidents 
 by the use of the generalizing imagination, that the greatest 
 results can be attained. The very evolution of the brain 
 itself has placed in our hands the mighty powers of surmise 
 and expectation, while experience has given us, when we 
 consider in the broadest spirit all that has been achieved, 
 a guide by which we can hope to direct our steps aright. 
 
 REFERENCES. 
 
 CHILD, C. M. " Senescence and Rejuvenescence." 
 
 CUNNINGHAM, J. T. " Heredity of Secondary Sexual Charac- 
 ters in Relation to Hormones," Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 
 1908. 
 
 GALTON, Sir FRANCIS. " Enquiries into Human Faculty." 
 
 HARTOG, MARCUS. "True Mechanism of Mitosis," Leipzig, 1914. 
 
 JEVONS, W. S. " Elementary Lessons in Logic," 1880. 
 
 KEITH, ARTHUR. " Differentiation of Mankind into Racial 
 Types," Address, Brit, Assoc., 1919. 
 
 MAINE, Sir H. G. "Ancient Law" (Pollock ed.), 1905. 
 
 MILL, J. S. " System of Logic," 1886. 
 
 SPENCER, HERBERT. " Transcendental Physiology," Essays, 
 1901, vol. i.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 MALIGNANCY 
 
 "P)EFORE trying to show how a general biological 
 -D and sociological principle can assist the investigator 
 of malignancy, I may say that it was the form of it 
 known as X-ray cancer which led me to attempt a co- 
 ordination of the many apparently unrelated facts con- 
 nected with it. To one not unfamiliar with speculation 
 from the time of Durante and Cohnheim, it seemed remark- 
 able that such a new aspect of the problem did not lead 
 the medical profession to discard theories formed before 
 X-rays were known. For, in the welter of conflicting 
 opinions as to the causes of cancer, it was at least certain 
 that here were agents which not only might, but, if suffi- 
 ciently applied, must in the end produce it. It seemed to 
 me then, as it seems now, that when such were discovered 
 all arguments as to the part played by " rests," or irritation, 
 or an acquired bad habit of tissues (Adami), or some 
 unknown infection, protozoal or bacillary, were partly 
 beside the point. Those martyrs to science, the early 
 radiologists, must have died in vain if no one recognizes 
 the high importance of the facts to which their agonies 
 bore witness. That radiologists, so far as I am aware, 
 have not seen the full value of X-ray dermatitis and 
 malignancy in cancer theory is, I can only suppose, due 
 
 to the immense calls upon their time and the peculiar 
 
 27
 
 28 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 interest of their daily work. But among them orthodoxy 
 has scarcely had time to rear its head, and those who have 
 seen tissues increase or rarefy almost under their own eyes 
 will probably regard with suspicion a hypothetic unique 
 infection, let us say, which has the remarkable power of 
 causing the proliferation of vigorous invasive tissue. Any 
 theory of malignancy which does not co-ordinate their 
 work with all relevant physiological and pathological 
 facts cannot be a true one. But, by taking their labours 
 into account, and linking them with certain physiological 
 and pathological phenomena, it is, I think, possible to 
 show that a fresh general view may reveal its true nature. 
 If it is then seen that there is no invariable single ante- 
 cedent to malignancy, it must be admitted that there are 
 many exciting " causes" of which X-rays are but one. If 
 such is the case, it follows logically that it is in the tissues 
 concerned, their nature and relationship, that the true 
 cause must be found. Those who have learnt by bitter 
 experience how to upset, and happily more often to restore, 
 somatic equilibrium, will be most ready to admit this 
 conclusion. Dynamite may be detonated in many ways, 
 but the scientific cause of the explosion is not the man 
 with the match, or the motive which led to its use, though 
 these may be causes in law or psychology, or even the 
 fulminate cap, but its inherent molecular instability. Per- 
 haps the most valuable work done of late is that which 
 shows the means and methods by which an unstable 
 organism is kept in equilibrium, and an explanation of 
 malignancy must take it into account. 
 
 It is, however, not common for investigators to work 
 under the influence of general ideas which cannot easily 
 be shown to have strict relevance to their objects. Though 
 to avoid this prevents the concoction of fantastic views^
 
 MALIGNANCY 29 
 
 it is certain that too strong a revulsion against theory 
 tends to atrophy the imagination, which is the most powerful 
 weapon of analysis. If our hypotheses and experiments 
 are always closely related to the particular matter in hand, 
 we learn to distrust unduly the tentative inductions we owe 
 to those who do not fear to put forward provisional results 
 which seem to have no immediate bearing on investigation. 
 Thus we do not commonly speak of an organism as a 
 republic of cells, or a federation of organs, and though this 
 seems unprofitable to many, we do so with advantage, since 
 it helps to clarify our ideas on general metabolism. The 
 conception is even more useful when it tends to show that 
 symbiosis is not only found in groups or societies, but in 
 those close cell-systems to which we commonly restrict the 
 term " individual." The more such ideas are studied the 
 more fruitful they become, though progress has not so far 
 advanced but that it is commonly taken for granted that the 
 essence of symbiotic life is mutual or inter-organic help. 
 We ignore the fact that when two individuals, and definite 
 cell-colonies may with advantage be called such, preserve 
 individuality, there is in their relations a certain real, if 
 subdued, hostility. Mutual help, even if indirect, un- 
 doubtedly exists, but how easily their relationship may 
 become one of parasite and host all zoologists are aware. 
 There is often a great reluctance to admit that what is true 
 of an organism as commonly conceived, is also true of 
 loosely knit human societies, and that the converse is not 
 mere fancy. But when we observe that this fundamental 
 reserve hostility is in fact self-protection in those political 
 federations which help each member even while they 
 provide against encroachment on the part of others, or of 
 the federal authorities, and then compare such observations 
 with organic life, it may not, to those with scientific imagina-
 
 30 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 tion, seem far-fetched to declare that the phenomena of 
 zoological and political symbiosis are intimately related, 
 and alike biological. Even in the healthy there is always 
 armed neutrality of tissues, and at any time there may come 
 a breakdown leading to warfare in the human body. Such 
 a conception helps us to see that, whatever the waste in 
 material, the methods by which life is built up, from 
 the apparently simple amoeba to the hugest empire, 
 are marvellously economical so economical, indeed, 
 as to suggest that life could be constructed only in 
 one way. 
 
 Whether such views are regarded as commonplaces or 
 extravagances every political student will recognize as 
 true the statement of fundamental inter-state hostility, 
 while every biologist or physiologist knows that balance 
 between opposing forces in the organism is a sine qua non 
 of its existence. To such a degree is this carried in health, 
 that every definite organ now appears to rule and to be 
 ruled, to control and to be controlled. The regulators of 
 metabolism are also the regulators of growth, and all alike 
 appear conditioned by the chemical messengers of their 
 environment. This is known to be true of the ductless 
 glands, and as we learn more of their functions we may 
 presently infer that all glands, ductless or not, have several 
 functions, and go on to suspect that every portion of the 
 whole body influences every other part, either for good or 
 evil. What was help may become refusal of aid, and what 
 was due inhibition may exhibit itself as destructive. If 
 we carry these general views with us, and seek for light, 
 not only in the lesser laboratory, but in the great laboratory 
 of life all round us in which ceaseless experiment is carried 
 on, we may presently be able to infer from the theory of 
 hostile symbiosis the real nature of malignancy, and to
 
 MALIGNANCY 31 
 
 suggest certain paths of inquiry and experiment with the 
 view to discovering a cure. 
 
 However much remains to be learnt of the glandular 
 system, it is known that the tissues respond or fail to re- 
 spond, and that characteristics are moulded in one way 
 or another, in accordance with the presence or absence, 
 the hypertrophy or atrophy, of these glands. When 
 sex is once determined the genital glands dominate 
 growth ; testes are more frequently correlated with larger, 
 ovaries with lesser, size. Ovariotomy allows undeveloped 
 male homologues greater opportunities ; early castration by 
 preventing differentiation preserves female characteristics. 
 If growth and size are mainly determined by the pituitary 
 and thyroid, emasculation appears to permit the pituitary 
 to exercise a greater influence on the legs, since the 
 eunuch's are longer than normal. Among the unsolved 
 problems of these organs is the phenomenon known as 
 unilateral acromegaly ; but the very fact that it occurs, and 
 that perfect symmetry is rare, shows how remarkably a 
 hormone, or regulators which Gley has named " harmo- 
 zones," can work or be inhibited. It seems that the 
 tissues are moulded according to the stimulation they 
 receive from secretions of which the chemical constitu- 
 tion may presently be as well known as that of adrenalin, 
 which exercises so powerful an influence on the blood- 
 pressure. A bone may be a function of many variables; 
 but one is a gland placed beside the brain. It seems prob- 
 able that the parathyroids influence the growth of nervous 
 tissue, since they control the irregular discharges of motor 
 nerves, and we yet learn that some forms of epilepsy are due 
 to hypo-parathyroidism. Thus not only growth, but much 
 normal behaviour, is ruled by what Bland-Sutton well calls 
 a glandular pantheon. That this is obviously so may
 
 82 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 reasonably lead to the inference that interacting stimula- 
 tion and regulation is a function of all tissues, and that this 
 is the method of growth and order in every animal what- 
 soever. All cases of excessive or defective growth must 
 be classed as the result of stimulation, or the want of it, as 
 surely as we see atrophy follow a failure of function or 
 hypertrophy on its excess. But if this is generally true of 
 all the obviously controlled tissues, it may easily enough 
 be true of those which are regulated we know not how, 
 and, if that be granted for the sake of discussion, it seems 
 possible not only to class all cases of malignancy, but 
 to suggest possible means of combating it by other than 
 surgical means. 
 
 That some method should be adopted for clearing up the 
 confusion of theory seems obvious when the battle-ground 
 of the cancer authorities and specialists is surveyed without 
 prejudice. Unless there is definite reason for coming to 
 other conclusions, it is usually safest to work on the principle 
 that earnest and able workers are rarely entirely wrong. 
 That the constitutional view of cancer, held by Paget, 
 though undoubtedly " humoral," and therefore suspect, 
 is still advocated by some is not surprising when it takes 
 the form of " predisposition," if the word is interpreted in 
 the light of modern physiology and heredity. To go no 
 further than to speak of the cancerous diathesis, after the 
 more ancient manner, is however a denial of explanation. 
 The theory of infection may also have something to com- 
 mend itself, if it is only on the ground that infections 
 may stimulate a latent proclivity, though to declare that 
 malignancy is due to a special pathogenic organism is to 
 ask us to believe that every form of it has its own special 
 bacillus or protozoon, or that a single one can exhibit its 
 potentialities in a thousand shapes, while it is necessary to
 
 MALIGNANCY 38 
 
 ignore other very definite phenomena which can with 
 difficulty be brought into line with such views. Moreover, 
 few pathologists will admit that what is seen in cancers has 
 any great likeness to those diseases definitely traced to 
 infection. For such a theory to be complete explanation, it 
 would be necessary to class all inflammatory hyperplasias 
 with malignant overgrowth. It is, of course, impossible to 
 deal with all that has been said in support of the infection 
 theory, which at the moment seems the orthodox view ; but, 
 so far as I have yet discovered, no exposition of it can be 
 reconciled with the complete pathology and histology of 
 these disorders. 1 All the evidence alleged to support it can 
 be interpreted as irritation tending to upset metabolic 
 balance, and the conclusions drawn from it are not com- 
 patible with X-ray cancer, or with the physiological and 
 pathological phenomena at the base of chorion-epithelioma. 
 Such an explanation will, I feel sure, be found a super- 
 fluous luxury, and as such to be dispensed with by the 
 economic philosopher. There are also workers who seem 
 satisfied with the notion that the phenomena in question 
 are due to loss of function in some cells, and increase of 
 function in others. This is no doubt true, but, again, 
 that is the very thing which needs to be explained. 
 We are often told that irritation is the cause of cancer, 
 and the mere statement seems to be considered ex- 
 planation. This is not the case for, though irritation is 
 often followed by cancer, all that is proved is that in some 
 of the organisms concerned resistance to irritation is 
 weakened, whereas in others it is maintained. Not every 
 clay-pipe smoker, even with syphilis, or every burnt 
 Kangri-user in Kashmir, or every chimney sweep, or pitch 
 or paraffin worker, gets cancer. We wish to know why 
 
 1 See Appendix A. The Infection Theory of Cancer. 
 3
 
 34 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 these differences exist, and we shall then be able to class 
 malignancy among other phenomena of normal and 
 abnormal growth. The attribution of malignancy to foods 
 is possibly not without value, if it leads to a diet which is 
 not irritating to the intestinal canal, and the fact that 
 salmon or trout fry, when fed abnormally on hog's liver, may, 
 it seems, suffer from an overgrowth of thyroidal tissue, which 
 later may become malignant, is of importance ; but we are 
 still as far as ever from the knowledge of causes which leads 
 to explanatory classification. It appears that all these 
 views are true as far as they go. If it can be shown that 
 they all point in one direction, we should not be far from 
 the truth. 
 
 There are, however, other theories to be taken into 
 account, which appear of greater value, since they are more 
 than re-statement, and seek explanation in the nature and 
 functions of the very tissues which become abnormal. 
 Such endeavours take into consideration not only pathology, 
 but physiology as well. If it is said, by the way, that there 
 is no greater hindrance to scientific advance than the 
 separation of physiology and pathology, few, who are not 
 specialists in either branch of learning, will be found to 
 deny it. The opinions, for they are little more, of Thiersch 
 and Waldeyer, have at any rate the advantage of contact 
 with the physiological side of the problem. Thiersch 
 held that with advancing age the connective tissue ceased 
 to be able to hold the epithelium in check. It was a 
 brilliant guess, but it failed to account for carcinomas in the 
 young, nor does it in any way explain sarcomas. Yet 
 how near the truth it was may possibly be shown later, 
 though, according to Bainbridge, the modern view of the 
 function of epithelium during development is that it 
 determines the character of the connective tissue, and
 
 MALIGNANCY 35 
 
 that cancer cells mould or determine connective tissue " to 
 their requirements." This may mean much or nothing, 
 for I confess to having seen few such loose statements. 
 Waldeyer's opinion was more complicated than Thiersch's, 
 and fuller of assumptions. He held that the epithelium 
 was weakened and, being pressed on by the connective 
 tissue, was in parts isolated, and thereby in some inexplic- 
 able way liable to transformation into cancer cells. Since 
 this transformation is the problem, we should be no further 
 advanced if insistance on the material of change were not 
 distinctly useful. Durante and Cohnheim, also, seem to 
 have been in favour of the theory that the epithelium and 
 connective tissue directly influenced each other; but 
 Cohnheim was led away by the sequestration or " cell- 
 rest " theory which is due to him. Modern research seems 
 to support his opinion that tumours are frequently to be 
 attributed to such causes ; but the malignity of some and 
 the benignity of others is still to be explained. It is absurd 
 to suppose that embryonic " rests " always occupy the 
 sites of tumours started by irritation, and Cohnheim himself 
 excepted certain cases where that seems the immediate 
 cause of malignancy. Ribbert held that such " rests " can 
 be created post-natally, and that epithelium, when cut off 
 from its ordinary physiological control, can proliferate 
 malignantly. Implantation tumours by themselves are suffi- 
 cient disproof of this view. Adami attributes cancer to an 
 acquired " habit of growth." The cells devote themselves 
 to mitosis. After what I have said I need not add that 
 this is merely re-description. It deals with " how ? " 
 not with " why ? " Green attributes cancer largely to the 
 influence of the combustion products of coal or peat, with 
 a high percentage of sulphur, as well as to low-lying valleys. 
 While such may be contributory factors to a loss of sym-
 
 36 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 biotic equilibrium, they certainly do not " explain " 
 malignancy. For it cannot be too frequently insisted on 
 that true explanation is the classification of phenomena 
 under some more inclusive law. Observations, however 
 useful they may prove as regards prevention, are not 
 explanation. For instance, if it be true that atrophy of 
 the thyroid is common, or almost invariable, in cancer, we 
 are not much further advanced in explanation, although in 
 certain cases, say those of familial proneness to malignant 
 disease, such an observation might be useful. 
 
 The sole general results which I am able to extract 
 from the argumentative confusion of the subject is that 
 epithelium and connective tissue somehow or other possess 
 the capacity of invasive aberrancy under long-continued 
 irritation. This may be no more than a re-statement, but 
 it suggests that the only hope of explanation lies in the 
 discovery of the reasons for tissue stability or instability. 
 Is there any reason for supposing that instability or in- 
 vasiveness is in certain conditions a physiological quality in 
 epithelium ? That connective-tissue cells are capable of 
 reparative work of an invasive order we know already. It 
 seems that the reply to the question about epithelium is 
 ready to hand. Bland-Sutton was, perhaps, on the very 
 verge of a possible explanation of cancer when he declared 
 that in the normal action of the trophoblasts of the 
 fertilized ovum could be seen the physiological type of the 
 invasive action of epithelium. In chorion-epithelioma 
 such a physiological type becomes pathological. This 
 dictum implicitly asserts that where the trophoblastic 
 action becomes malignant, there is a loss of balance ; the 
 multi-nuclear cap of the villus is not inhibited by the normal 
 uterine reactions which usually prevent such invasion. 
 What is it in the normal uterus which does inhibit it ?
 
 MALIGNANCY 37 
 
 We are not going beyond what is known of repair if we say 
 that the reaction tissues are mainly connective. In the 
 normal gravid uterus the erosive action of the trophoblast 
 is thus in all probability stayed by a connective-tissue 
 reaction. Yet this erosive action is malignancy. Cells in 
 contact with the trophoblast dissolve are, as it were, 
 digested. As the larva of the blow-fly dissolves dead cells, 
 so the trophoblast cap dissolves live uterine cells, by some 
 chemical product, some cytolitic secretion. In normal 
 gestation such action is neutralized sooner or later, and 
 since malignant epithelium, when active, pierces connective 
 tissues as if they did not exist, the reaction which stays 
 its course in the uterine wall must be more than mere 
 fibrous growth. We seem compelled to assume that some 
 cells can neutralize malignant cytolitic action by their 
 products, and thus restore physiological balance. The 
 resumption of pathological action in chorion-epithelioma 
 comes on in the period of involution, when all the uterine 
 tissues lose their activity. It seems hardly too much to 
 say that the secretions or cell-products of the active con- 
 nective tissue are those which inhibit, or fail to inhibit, 
 the alien epithelium. H. B. Spencer, after quoting Sir 
 John Williams, who stated that pregnancy had no influence 
 in causing benign ovarian tumours to become malignant, and 
 that in old women such are rare, goes on to say that the 
 cause of this rarity cannot at present be stated. A light 
 is, however, thrown upon these facts if it is remembered 
 that during gestation and the retrocedence of the aged 
 ovary there is great connective-tissue activity. 
 
 If the implications of the argument are clear, it will be 
 seen that the conclusion to be drawn tentatively is that in 
 such reactions lies hidden the mystery of malignancy. 
 It will, perhaps, be objected that the multi-nuclear cap of the 
 
 S 7 5 1 u
 
 38 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 trophoblast is in a sense of alien origin, whereas ordinary 
 malignant growths are autochthonous. In this very fact 
 of partial alien origin lies support of the view suggested. It 
 is more than conceivable that the male element in the 
 zygote is here the earliest possible origin of malignant 
 energy. It would not be wholly surprising if future investi- 
 gation traced such cases to the peculiar energy of some 
 spermatozoa. The ease with which a sperm-cell enters the 
 unfertilized ovum might be a measure of the likelihood of 
 chorion-epithelioma, provided that the resistance of the 
 ovum were a measure of the general tissue resistance of the 
 maternal organism. But even granting that the alien, or 
 partially alien, origin of the trophoblast renders malignancy 
 more likely than with ordinary somatic tissues, it may be 
 replied, on the lines adopted at the beginning of this paper, 
 that all such tissues are, in spite of their symbiotic life, 
 fundamentally alien and hostile. A breakdown in their 
 relations as established by evolution may, and in many 
 forms of disease does, occur. By the study of the glan- 
 dular system the interdependence of all tissues is inferred. 
 There is, also, undoubtedly self -protection. ' Thus far 
 and no farther " is embryological law. With deficient 
 inhibition we see this law abrogated. For in a new environ- 
 ment we may see any variation. Thus the polymorphism 
 of malignant epithelial cells described by E. H. Kettle is 
 just what might be expected on the loss of normal control. 
 The whole body is a group of organs and tissues which are 
 not always harmonious, and the behaviour of malignant or 
 benign aberrant tissue is by no means a phenomenon 
 standing by itself. Probably all tissues might become 
 malignant if they were as capable of free and rapid pro- 
 liferation as connective tissue and epithelium. Invasiveness 
 is natural to embryonic tissues. But have not embryo-
 
 MALIGNANCY 89 
 
 legists been apt to regard the cessation of invasion at 
 a given stage as a " natural " fact, i.e. just the result to be 
 expected of that kind of cell or tissue ? But to cease 
 growing means either a failure of energy or inhibition, and 
 growth must be analysed into excitation and inhibition. 
 In a very true sense " malignancy " or invasiveness is char- 
 acteristic of all growing tissue. It is not a wild illustration 
 to point out that in society we are all potential criminals at 
 the mercy of excitation and inhibition, nor otiose to observe 
 that the liability to crime on the part of aliens in this or any 
 country is due to unaccustomed stimulation and the lack 
 of former inhibitions. Such criminality is an analogue of 
 malignancy. I owe to Professor Keith the suggestion that 
 the negro in the United States is even a better example. 
 The negro community there is as much a transplanted tissue 
 as a cancer metastasis, it tends to spread, excites violent 
 reactions, and might conceivably prove definitely malignant. 
 I am aware that the remark may excite ridicule ; but it can 
 be pointed out that the reaction against the immigrant 
 negro in the north is comparatively slight, and that when 
 trouble occurs it is very frequently due to the presence of a 
 Southerner who, by his previous contact with the race, 
 has been "sensitized " so as to react violently. Without 
 desiring to push the analogy to its farthest extreme, it is 
 obvious that a large negrine irruption tends to break up and 
 push apart previous social bonds and regulations. I do 
 not see how it can be denied that such illustrations help 
 us to understand the more obscure somatic phenomena. 
 
 It must be quite obvious by now that the views here 
 advocated link the general theory of malignancy to the 
 doctrine of the endocrine organs, that glandular hierarchy 
 or pantheon which rules growth and metabolism. When 
 we observe that the absence of a particular secretion limits
 
 40 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 growth, or that its undue increase makes such growth abnor- 
 mally large, we are assuredly dealing with phenomena 
 closely connected with the existence of epithelial or con- 
 nective-tissue neoplasms. In both sets of phenomena the 
 root fact is failure of proliferation or its excess. If we delve 
 deeply enough into causes it will not seem absurd to put 
 cancers and giantism or acromegaly into related sub-classes. 
 That the latter are due to abnormal glandular activity we 
 know. With normal pituitary influence no overgrowth 
 occurs. Connective-tissue proliferation ceases at a point 
 when the glandular system becomes balanced. This is 
 obviously the case with what we see in repair of normal 
 epithelium and connective tissue. When the epithelium is 
 stripped away, and the underlying structures damaged, the 
 connective-tissue cells proliferate rapidly. As the young 
 epithelial cells invade the edges of the wound the under- 
 lying cells become fibrous and deep scar- tissue. Excessive 
 and unhealthy granulations only arise when the epithelium 
 does not do its work. Histologically there is a great like- 
 ness between round-celled sarcoma and granulation tissue, 
 and, after all, granulation is no more than connective- 
 tissue cell proliferation growing outwards into a wound 
 where normal tissues are wanting. A sarcoma might 
 almost be called inverted ingrowing granulations . That the 
 varied phenomena of malignancy exceed in variety those 
 attributable to merely defective or hypertrophied glands 
 is only what might be expected. Such glands are highly 
 specialized epithelium with very definite work. The 
 general epithelium of the body is much less differentiated 
 and nearer the embryonic type. It is found practically 
 everywhere. Connective tissue is the somatic network; 
 in no part is it absent. It exhibits a remarkable capacity 
 for many forms of rapid specialization, and may be looked
 
 MALIGNANCY 41 
 
 on as highly unstable because of these very qualities. But 
 its instability is obviously a function of many variables. 
 From the universal presence of these two tissues we infer 
 that normally there is nothing in the organism which 
 inhibits the existence of either in any part. They can grow 
 anywhere, and if aberrancy occurs at all it is in them we 
 should look for it, if they did not, in some analogous to the 
 action of the endocrines, inhibit each other's undue growth. 
 The age incidence of sarcoma and carcinoma suggests most 
 forcibly that they do so. Sarcoma is predominately a 
 disease of youth, though it may be found at any age. It may 
 develop in utero. Repair is most active when it is com- 
 monest, and epithelium is most delicate. Epithelium 
 reaches a peculiar state of activity, as shown by its 
 products and conduct, at a later age in which connective- 
 tissue activity is lessened and repair slackens. It is a period 
 in which persons of failing metabolism tend to accumulate 
 toxic products in the connective tissue which depress and 
 inhibit its activity. It is the age of cancer. When cancer 
 occurs in the adolescent there is frequently a history of 
 heredity. That the unbalanced should breed unbalanced 
 offspring is not surprising. The cancer house and the 
 cancer valley are unhealthy, most low-lying. From a defec- 
 tive environment we do not expect tissue health or balance, 
 i.e. the normal influence of one tissue on another in a 
 federated system. It is by no means necessary that such 
 influences must be exerted by definite glands. Every glan- 
 dular secretion is but a specialized form of some unknown 
 epithelial product. Snake venom arises in a specialized 
 salivary gland ; the secretion of the salivary gland in 
 embryonic epithelial cells. Epithelium as the parent tissue 
 of the true glands must have its own unspecialized secre- 
 tion, which is poured into the circulation and exerts its
 
 42 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 influence everywhere. We can hardly go wrong if we 
 say that every cell in the body influences every other cell, 
 and that those which are in an immense majority have 
 much power. Newton's law of gravity might almost be 
 translated into a somatic law, even if some physiological 
 Einstein presently corrected it. 
 
 It is, therefore, by no means mere guesswork to assume 
 that the relations of epithelium and connective tissue are the 
 essence of the cancer problem. Quite independent of their 
 cross action in repair we actually see in atrophic " scirrhus " 
 of the mamma that this slowly developing cancer is sur- 
 rounded by more or less dense strands of fibrous tissue, and 
 is often known as withering or contracting cancer. Patients 
 may live for twenty years or more with this variety of the 
 disease. In old age the connective tissue appears to give 
 way, and the few imprisoned anarchic epithelial cells may 
 resume their invasive qualities. It was such cancers 
 which showed the older physicians that there were attempts 
 at repair in malignancy ; but they attributed its arrest to 
 mere mechanical action, a view not tenable when we 
 consider the great erosive effect of really wild epithelium. 
 Handley has shown that in melanotic cancer at a later stage 
 of permeation, there is inflammation accompanied by 
 round-celled infiltration and fibrous growths, while in 
 Paget's Disease there is peri-lymphatic fibrosis. From the 
 experiments in vitro of Champy, much can be learnt as to 
 the relations of these tissues. He demonstrated that when 
 renal tissue was grown in a nutritive plasm it showed, 
 after nine hours, new tubules of a primitive order, while 
 still further away from the original section the epithelial 
 cells did not form tubules, and were of a simple embryonic 
 type. This can only be attributed to loss of control by 
 normal inhibitions. When the same worker cultivated
 
 MALIGNANCY 43 
 
 simpler epithelium and connective tissue together, the 
 epithelial cells retained their characteristics; but when 
 they spread and grew apart from the connective tissue they 
 lost their usual order and appearance, and were no longer 
 true epithelium. Only one inference can be made. It is 
 that these tissues are to each other controlling environment. 
 Bayliss says in commenting on this, " It seems that cells, 
 when they have taken special functions in the organism, are 
 normally prevented by some means from continuing their 
 primitive multiplication, and that when this influence which 
 restrains their growth is removed, they start afresh and 
 produce simple embryonic tissue. There is significance in 
 these facts in connection with the formation of malignant 
 tissues." Assuredly nothing could be truer and, working 
 with the analogy of the endocrines, we are forced to 
 conclude that like effects are produced by like causes. 
 The " influence " at work must be some product of the 
 connective tissue. In an unstable organism any depressing 
 factor inhibiting the activity of that tissue, such as un- 
 eliminated katabolic toxins accumulating in the lymphatics 
 and connective tissue generally, may end in allowing the 
 explosive epithelium to break out into embryonic activity. 
 Such instability has many analogues in pathology. 
 
 If it be granted that these facts are of importance, it 
 seems that it is by using them, and by following the indica- 
 tions afforded us by chorion-epithelioma and X-ray cancer 
 that we are likely to solve the problem. No doubt it may 
 seem strange to bracket such diseases, but if it be found 
 that two disorders so different in origin point the same way 
 we cannot be far from the truth. In X-rays we have an 
 exciting cause of epithelial overgrowth which not only 
 may, but if sufficiently applied, must produce malignancy. 
 The symptoms of X-ray dermatitis are those of profound
 
 44 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 irritation, epithelial overgrowth, attempts at repair, which 
 in mild cases succeed and in severe ones fail disastrously, 
 leaving the skin in epithelial anarchy. It is cracked and 
 fissured in every direction, heaped up in one place and 
 broken down in another, until it becomes a picture of dis- 
 order rarely seen even in the domain of dermatology. Such 
 an exhibition of ineffective energy spent at the surface in 
 vain efforts at repair makes it less surprising that what we 
 may call the potential of the deep epithelial layers of the epi- 
 dermis becomes abnormally kinetic. It may be said that the 
 cells of that layer grow malignant because they find existence 
 impossible in their normal position. It seems certain that 
 in large doses the effect of the rays on connective tissue is 
 depressing : they are, at any rate, totally unable at the last 
 to resist, either by mechanical or chemical means, the push 
 of the escaping epithelium. It is stated by Darier and 
 Wolbarth that in X-ray dermatitis there is hypertrophy of 
 the epidermis, and pronounced degeneration of the corium, 
 the most marked result being, as I anticipated before 
 I was aware of the actual facts, the rarefaction of the sub- 
 epidermal portion. I may also mention the work of 
 Lazarus-Barlow and his co-workers at the Middlesex 
 Hospital. He points out that in certain conditions the 
 influence of radium rays is one of stimulation. In experi- 
 ments on rats, which produced what can only be described 
 as squamous-cell cancer, it is especially to be noted that 
 there was degeneration of the subjacent connective tissue, 
 which even extended to bone and cartilage. Obviously 
 radium was here used in time quantities, which carried 
 stimulation into degeneration. These changes are, I may 
 perhaps venture to say, only such as could have been pre- 
 dicted, and I did in fact predict them before being aware 
 of his resiilts. The same can be said of those obtained
 
 MALIGNANCY 45 
 
 lately by Russ and his colleagues with regard to lympho- 
 cytosis, leucopenia, and immunity. They add immensely 
 to the value of their work by pointing out that a large 
 lymphocyte count is not by itself sufficient to procure or 
 preserve immunity. If the general connective tissue and 
 its catalysts are not active this is to be expected. These 
 catalysts, immune bodies, or anti-bodies, are almost 
 certainly connective-tissue cell products. Russ, indeed, 
 says there is some as yet undetermined relationship between 
 the number of lymphocytes and the occurrence of immunity. 
 But if cancer actually depends on the weakening of con- 
 nective-tissue cells of all kinds, the relationship is no longer 
 undetermined. We have a real explanation why large 
 doses of X-rays, which are more or less fatal to lymphocytes, 
 destroy immunity, and we get a clue to the reason for 
 small or stimulating doses conferring it on susceptible 
 animals. Hernaman-Johnson states definitely that clinical 
 observation and microscopic research show that carcinoma 
 is favourably influenced as the result of this dual action. 
 Mathematically speaking, the good influence of small doses 
 acts as a " couple," the peccant tissue is inhibited, and 
 the limiting or resisting tissue is stimulated to activity. 
 With such phenomena before us there is no need to posit 
 some unknown cause. In all explanation it is illicit to 
 import the unknown when the known can be made to 
 account for the facts. If radium and X-rays, according 
 to their dosage and application, can cause different effects 
 in both tissues, and by restoring or impairing them produce 
 amelioration or further destruction, the case for infection 
 falls to the ground. It is also said by Knox that the 
 curative effect of radium depends in many cases on the 
 Becquerel rays stimulating the connective tissue and pro- 
 ducing fibrosis. Under the battery which brings about
 
 46 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 these results it can hardly be thought that any specific 
 cancer protozoon continues to live. Those who believe 
 in the infection theory must take up the position that the 
 agent is everywhere in the body or the environment ready 
 to infect the patient in the so-called pre-cancerous stage 
 of X-ray malignancy. Such a hypothesis is a multi- 
 plication of causes. The only true pre-cancerous stage is 
 seen when the underlying connective tissue weakens or 
 rarefies. This is assuredly the case in leucoplakia, although 
 I have not so far been able to see sections proving it. 
 The destructive powers of the X-rays on connective 
 tissues, in combination with the resistance of the skin, 
 are sufficient to account for the results. In what other 
 way can we interpret the conclusions reached by J. B. 
 Murphy and Sturm ? These workers found that the 
 entire lymphoid tissue of the body could be destroyed 
 in from seven to twenty-one days by repeated small doses 
 of X-rays. In such a condition the theory of this paper 
 would infer that an immense reduction of organic resist- 
 ance followed. What do we find ? First, there is a greatly 
 lessened resistance to alien implants ; second, a lowered 
 resistance to cancer grafts ; third, the destruction of 
 acquired immunity to cancer ; and, fourth, a lowered 
 resistance to the tubercle bacillus and other infective agents. 
 Murphy, however, remarks that the chief objection to 
 accepting the lymphatics as a great factor of resistance to 
 cancer growth is that the lymph nodes are common points 
 for metastatic growths. This appears to be no such 
 objection as he imagines since the very existence of the 
 primary focus is in all probability due to general loss of tone 
 of all connective-tissue cells, stationary or wandering, 
 highly evolved or semi-embryonic. I draw the con- 
 clusion with confidence that, as with chorion-epithelioma,
 
 MALIGNANCY 47 
 
 where infection is negatived by the whole of the pheno- 
 mena of ovum and uterine interaction, X-ray malignancy 
 and allied phenomena point straight to the conclusion 
 that the explanation of cancer lies in the relations of epithe- 
 lium and connective tissue; that benignity is a normal 
 reaction and malignity a failure ; that irritation is only a 
 means by which the normal reactions of these tissues are 
 destroyed ; and that infections are only causes so far as they 
 excite or depress and thereby destroy the balance of tissues 
 which exercise outside control by their mechanical nature 
 and products. I have so far found no theory but the one 
 here advocated that reconciles all these phenomena, and 
 it is a fact that it enabled me to prophesy many observa- 
 tions quite unknown to me at one period of investigation. 
 Conclusions of this kind are necessarily as relevant to 
 sarcoma as to carcinoma. The immense activity of con- 
 nective tissue in youth suggests that it might at any age get 
 out of hand. Fowls seem specially liable to it. Luckily 
 they mostly die young. An aged fowl, which should be 
 liable to carcinoma, is a rare object. As a domestic 
 animal which, owing to the caprice of breeders, is in a 
 peculiarly fluent condition, it is particularly liable to loss 
 of balance. Uterine or mammary cancer is rare in bitches, 
 a fact very properly attributed to their commonly dying 
 before involution sets in. It may also be due to their 
 habits, since they are not so much exposed to sexual stimuli 
 as human beings, who only practice continence during the 
 oestrus. It is said that castrated animals are more liable 
 to malignant diseases than others. They have been thrown 
 out of normal balance by operation. The peculiar deadli- 
 ness of sarcoma seems natural enough if we remember that 
 it is to connective tissue that all repair is due. It is a 
 case of " quis custodiet ? " when the guardian tissue
 
 48 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 becomes anarchic. Whatever influence epithelium may 
 have upon it, epithelial tissue cells cannot surround, or 
 attempt to encapsule, aberrant connective tissue, for as 
 soon as they proliferate freely they are themselves malignant. 
 It|seems to me that these views make it easy to under- 
 stand why a healed gastric or other ulcer may become the 
 originating point of cancer. That there is ever an ulcer 
 at all shows that connective-tissue reactions are weak. 
 When such an ulcer heals there is scar tissue with epithelium 
 already some stages on the way to embryonic epithelium. 
 Ex hypothesi, the underlying fibrous tissue is not very 
 resistant, and when the irritation continues which first 
 caused the ulcer the over-stimulated and already partly 
 wild epithelium proliferates, and is not properly inhibited. 
 Given such conditions, carcinoma can be predicted. The 
 results are no longer a puzzle. 
 
 That benign tumours should often become malignant 
 is, according to the theory advocated, just what might 
 be expected. With senescence there is in the whole body 
 an increase of static elements as compared with the 
 cytoplasm ; a tendency to rigidity, and a loss of the federal 
 unity of the body which we call health. There is less 
 response to regulative stimulation or inhibition, and less or 
 more of the normal hormones to respond to. The result 
 should naturally be an increase in the autonomy of separated 
 parts, and the increasing dominance of any tissue which 
 is in excess. That the chief tendency of malignancy is 
 towards carcinoma, is what we should expect at an age 
 when epithelium in any case tends to become rampant, 
 but that a benign connective-tissue tumour, in which the 
 epithelial portions are at a minimum, should at last break 
 bounds is by no means surprising. When thinking upon 
 such lines, and dealing with phenomena of senescence, it is
 
 MALIGNANCY 49 
 
 a not uninteresting speculation if we venture to attribute to 
 a temporary rejuvenescence the partial cures or allevia- 
 tions of symptoms often found when a new empirical remedy 
 is tried in inoperable cases. To inspire hope by whatever 
 means is a function of the physician and, to do so is, in the 
 language of the physicists, to free energy. The hopeless 
 patient, when concentred on his symptoms and his feelings, 
 is doubly the host of a parasite, his energy is bound within 
 a narrow circle, his horizon of life contracted to a mere 
 point. As a result his functions fail : he eliminates 
 less and less toxin, the static elements increase till the cyto- 
 plasm of his whole organism is as unable to cope with its 
 work as his cerebral cytoplasm is to face the general situa- 
 tion. If he is afforded hope in any way whatsoever the 
 engine works again : there is at least a temporary rejuven- 
 escence, and the partially freed tissues tend to resume their 
 functions. At such a stage the progress of a tumour ma^ 
 be arrested by the renewed action of connective tissue or 
 epithelium, or of the general regulative metabolism of the 
 whole body. 
 
 Though cancer " cures " may thus exercise a favourable, 
 if brief, influence on those who suffer, their number and 
 character bear bitter witness to the confusion of the whole 
 subject. In theory I have been unable to find any general 
 principle at work. If it were not that in looking back 
 upon the past of pathology it is seen that most advances 
 have been made rather by trial and error, than by any 
 great grasp of the human mind, those who are not wedded 
 to one particular theory might indeed feel hopeless. Amid 
 the din of battle, the confusion and the shouting, it is hard 
 to discover order. Yet to those who are somewhat with- 
 drawn from the arena, facts do sometimes emerge which 
 seem of real relevance. The long-known occasional cure 
 4
 
 50 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 of cancer due to erysipelas is one of them, and the very 
 failure of Coley's fluid, composed of the toxins of 5. ery- 
 sipelatosus and B. prodigiosus, to fulfil the hopes of its 
 inventor, may, if considered in a proper light, be of the 
 greatest assistance. That these toxins, without the acute 
 attack, fail of their purpose, suggests very forcibly that it is 
 not such toxins which inhibit the growth of the aberrant 
 tissue, but that it is overcome by the immense reactions of 
 the connective tissue which result in the cure of the acute 
 infection. So far as Coley's fluid excites the connective 
 tissue, so far it may possibly do good. Such a view is 
 greatly strengthened by the experiments of Ehrlich and 
 Apolant, if they can be regarded as authenticated. This 
 is, I think, thought by many not to be the case ; but their 
 results fall in so completely with the views advocated in this 
 paper, that I find it impossible to disregard them. That a 
 transplanted mouse carcinoma should in certain cases 
 produce sarcoma seemed to some impossible ; and to some a 
 proof that the transplanted tissue was really sarcomatous. 
 Yet if it is granted for the moment that epithelium and con- 
 nective tissue live in symbiotic hostility, such a phenomenon 
 is by no means so surprising as it looks. It is but re- 
 action overbalancing itself. On continued transplantation 
 with one strain it is said that the connective tissue overcame 
 the epithelium, till it at last consisted of scattered cells only, 
 so that finally the graft was a pure sarcoma. In another 
 strain this " power to induce sarcoma " was lost, and the 
 tumour remained epithelial in character. The phrase 
 " power to induce sarcoma " is, to say the least of it, 
 unhappy. By the phenomenon, if correctly reported, we 
 have to understand that the host's connective tissue did not 
 react. No explanation of these observations is to be found 
 in any theory but that of the action and reaction of the two
 
 MALIGNANCY 51 
 
 tissues concerned. When their balance is upset, one pro- 
 liferates abnormally. Anything that throws the organism 
 out of gear is a possible factor of malignancy, and that is the 
 reason why, with the increase of wealth, a new and highly 
 varied environment, which tends to produce variation, 
 makes for the increase of such disease. 
 
 If the value of a theory depends on the aid it gives in 
 explanation, the one here advocated certainly helps to 
 make it clearer why some forms of malignancy are more 
 deadly and liable to metastasis than others. So far there 
 has been no real explanation of the fact that the forms of 
 it which deviate most widely from the tissue of origin are 
 most rapid and destructive. It has remained an observa- 
 tion, and to say this extreme aberrancy from type 
 renders it more deadly is only to repeat in another 
 form what has been said before. But if it is under- 
 stood that the immediate and total somatic environ- 
 ment determine cell character, it is obvious that extreme 
 aberrancy implies that the determining tissues generally 
 are weakened to an extreme degree, and that any 
 cancer growth or embolus will nowhere meet with much 
 resistance. That environment has definite results is well 
 known. In speaking of the relatively more deadly femoral 
 sarcoma, as compared with a similar tumour in the tibia, 
 Bland-Sutton says : " This would appear to indicate that 
 the two tumours, though structurally alike, really have 
 different causes, yet these are facts which lead us to 
 suppose that variations in tissue actually constitute a 
 different environment." He adds that echinococcus disease 
 is the only condition which supports this view. Yet surely 
 in studying all diseases we are compelled to come to the 
 conclusion that different reactions, in different patients, with 
 the same disorder, can only be due to their bodies consti-
 
 52 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 tuting a different environment. Further investigation will 
 almost certainly show that there is some reaction differ- 
 ence in the region of the femur when compared with that 
 of the tibia. The comparative immunity of joints from a 
 burrowing sarcoma supports the view that some tissues have 
 a more powerful resistance than others. It may be that the 
 great resistance of cartilage is due to its lack of channels ; 
 but it is far more likely that it is due to the cell products 
 of its closely arranged cells. In studying the various types 
 of malignancy we cannot but be struck by the varying 
 amounts of normal, or fairly normal, connective tissue 
 about them. That the small, round-celled sarcoma should 
 be more deadly than most of the other varieties is what 
 would be expected from the scantiness of the still growing or 
 surviving stroma. Such varieties as are more difficult to 
 distinguish from normal cells seem obviously those in 
 which the whole of the normal inhibition of the environ- 
 ment has not been overcome. These are points in which a 
 considerable knowledge of biology might be of assistance to 
 pathologists. 
 
 While it is impossible to deal here in detail with every 
 kind of tumour, something may be said of embryomas and 
 their malignant forms. Obscure and difficult as the subject 
 is, there seems reason to believe that when it is understood 
 many of the basal problems of biology will be solved with 
 it. That they are due to some ovum, or embryonic ovarian 
 tissue, developing parthenogenetically, seems more than 
 likely. Shattock's remarkable paper on these tumours 
 supports the view that embryonic ova may be fertilized by 
 errant spermatozoa ; but there are many reasons for coming 
 to the conclusion that an embryonic " rest " may develop 
 without such assistance. Such views do not account for 
 infantile feminine or testicular embryomas. It is more
 
 MALIGNANCY 58 
 
 likely that any epithelium in regions where reproductive 
 processes commence may, under some abnormal stimula- 
 tion, develop incompletely determined epithelial products 
 or rudimentary organs. The prodigious fertilit}' of em- 
 bryomas in such products suggests that the imperfect 
 parent tissue is doing its best to be normal, if the phrase is 
 permissible ; but that such a result is impossible, owing to 
 the necessary lack of normal excitation and inhibition, 
 i.e. of the usual environment. That a simple product of 
 epithelium, such as hair, may be perfect is not surprising. 
 The epithelium from which it grows is practically the only 
 environmental stimulus it requires. That teeth, on the 
 other hand, are rudimentary, misshaped, and monstrous, 
 may be regarded as the result of their lacking a normal 
 environment. That embryomas are frequently very 
 deadly is what may be expected from the possibilities of 
 the unspecialized tissues from which they originate. The 
 study of interaction of the various tissues should include 
 far more than the endocrine organs, since it is more 
 than likely to solve the problems of heredity, as well 
 as those of malignant growth. The divisions between 
 physiology, pathology, and biology are responsible in a 
 very large measure for the slowness with which they 
 all advance. 
 
 It follows from all these considerations that it must 
 not be supposed that reaction against one kind of over- 
 growth or the other is due entirely to the tissues principally 
 concerned. Such a view would be a partial denial of the 
 entire independence of the whole organic federation. 
 There is reason to suppose that the blood-stream is hostile 
 to intrusive epithelium. Small cancerous emboli excite 
 thrombosis, and are sometimes buried, and perhaps 
 destroyed, in a blood clot in which lymphocytes are
 
 54 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 probably very prominent. The erosive agent of the 
 chorionic villus is in its multi-nuclear cap, or giant cell, 
 sometimes without warrant called a plasmodium. Pro- 
 perly speaking a plasmodium consists of fused cells, and 
 there is reason to suppose that a giant cell is one which 
 accumulates nuclear material without normal fission. 
 If we regard the nucleus not as a " director," which is a 
 common psychological fallacy, but as a workshop con- 
 taining the non-living tools, weapons, or catalysts, by 
 which the cytoplasm works, it is easy to understand that 
 when there is active use and much waste of such tools, 
 mitosis does not occur. In normal gestation, when uterine 
 reaction is complete and erosion ceases, there is probably 
 no longer any multi-nucleated cell, for where such are 
 found pathological conditions exist. If we knew when 
 such a cell is again formed in fragments of the decidua 
 we should be able to point to the very moment when 
 chorion-epithelioma starts. It begins when the uterus 
 has involuted, and is no longer in its highly developed 
 and vascular form. I say highly vascular because, as 
 remarked before, it seems that the blood plasm itself 
 exerts a direct inhibitory influence on malignant cells. 
 When considering this aspect of the problem I came, 
 independently of any suggestion, to the conclusion that 
 in some carcinomatous conditions I should expect to 
 find multi-nuclear epithelial cells, closely resembling the 
 cap of the trophoblast. This inference was confirmed 
 by Mr. Sampson Handley, who told me, not at all to my 
 surprise, that whereas no such cells are formed at the 
 distal part of a carcinoma while still advancing in the 
 lymphatics, they are to be found as soon as the growth 
 comes in contact with the blood. This implies that there 
 is a new reaction in the growth, and such a reaction seems
 
 MALIGNANCY 55 
 
 obviously due to the inhibiting action of the blood-stream 
 and the catalysts it carries. 
 
 If these conclusions are of any weight, and it is allowed 
 that malignancy is a failure of developmental machinery, 
 we are impelled to ask if there is any one gland in the 
 human body, for instance, which, on the principles of 
 interactions between epithelium and connective tissue, 
 may be more to blame than another. The thyroid is 
 suspect since it is frequently in a morbid condition in 
 malignant states ; but no proof has been adduced of its 
 responsibility. There are, moreover, much greater 
 reasons for suspecting another gland, directly responsible 
 for definite under- or overgrowth, such as the pituitary 
 body, since its direct connection with bone development 
 is now admitted on all hands. But if the pituitary can 
 determine infantilism, gigantism, and acromegaly by over- 
 growth or failure of bone-growth, and growth in all tissues 
 generally, it is hardly extravagant to suggest that it may 
 be directly responsible for bone sarcomas. If this is true 
 we might then call sarcoma of the bones " local explosive 
 osteomegalies." If there is such a thing as anarchy 
 among the osteoblasts and osteoclasts, in which each under 
 abnormal stimulation functioned regardless of normal 
 inhibitions, we should expect such phenomena as we 
 see in femoral sarcoma. It is at least a possible explana- 
 tion to suggest that the deadly character of such a sarcoma 
 is due to a breakdown in a bone exposed, perhaps, to 
 greater single stresses than any in the body. But if the 
 pituitary can influence one form of connective tissue, 
 however highly specialized, it may equally influence 
 other forms. From one point of view, the beginnings 
 of all late sarcomas, not only those of bone, might be 
 regarded as cases of overdone repair, while those of early
 
 56 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 life might be looked on as the result of over-stimulated 
 activities in cases which under other conditions might 
 have been the subjects of gigantism. Any glandular 
 secretion may very conceivably have abnormal local 
 effects. But, if early or late hyper-pituitarism has relation 
 to sarcomas, hypo-pituitarism may equally well result 
 at any time of life in under-inhibition of epithelium, a 
 state, according to the theory here supported, which 
 seems a necessary preliminary to cancer. 
 
 While I offer these views with the greatest diffidence, 
 I may remark that though their acceptance might lead to 
 further discoveries, and even to cure, their rejection would 
 by no means invalidate my conclusions as to the relations 
 of the two great tissues concerned. A breakdown of one 
 or the other may conceivably be determined by any dis- 
 order of one or more of the endocrine glands. Such sug- 
 gestions may, at any rate, lead to definite observations of 
 the pituitary being made in fatal cases of malignancy, a 
 thing, so far as I know, which has not been done. If 
 any changes in it could be detected, they might offer a 
 rational basis for therapeutics, though it is highly probable 
 that a morbid secretion without visible change might be 
 responsible for invasive tissues. 
 
 To put aside such speculations for a moment, and return 
 to the general aspect of the problem, it must be owned that 
 the confusion in theory is more than equalled by that in 
 experimental therapeutics. Outside of surgery, which with 
 radiology seems to present the patient with his only chance 
 of prolonged life, most attempts at cure appear quackery, or 
 empiricism run mad. Preparations of all kinds of tissues 
 have been injected, and the results discredit optimism 
 itself. Yet if it is agreed that the fundamental principles 
 of life are inter-organic stimulation and inhibition, and that
 
 MALIGNANCY 57 
 
 want of order is the result of failure in metabolic regulators, 
 such views lead at once to considered experiment The 
 arguments used to establish this theory may be deemed 
 insufficient as proof yet, if they lead to trial, verification 
 may follow. Such trials should be directed to assisting the 
 reaction of all connective tissue in cases of carcinoma, and 
 that of epithelium in those of sarcoma. How this can best 
 be done is for the physiologist, radiologist, and pathologist 
 to determine ; but even if the suggestions as to the pituitary 
 prove to be without foundation, it may be suggested that 
 after the excision of a carcinoma efforts should be made to 
 irritate or stimulate the connective tissue in the neighbour- 
 hood of the removed focus. We know now that this may be 
 done by radiation, while the injection of doses of epithelial 
 juices might assist the process. Since many forms of 
 cell proliferation are inhibited by their own products, it 
 is not unlikely that aberrant epithelium may be rendered 
 inactive by injections of healthy epithelial products, or by 
 prepared and filtered cancer juice. With sarcoma similar 
 trials might be made, and in the meantime, while such 
 experiments are in progress, on operated or inoperable cases, 
 it should be the task of the physiologist or bio-chemist to 
 separate from epithelium and connective tissue the chemical 
 compound, or complex of compounds, by which they exer- 
 cise their direct influence. Difficult as such a task may 
 prove, the labour might well be worth undertaking, when we 
 consider its possible results. In any case, much might be 
 learned by the further study of normal epithelium and con- 
 nective tissue in nutrient media, while they are subjected 
 to X-rays or radium, or both, or to the influences of various 
 endocrine secretions or toxins. Malignant tissues in vitro 
 should be observed under similar conditions. We might 
 then learn how and why certain epithelial cells become
 
 58 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 multi-nuclear, and whether such can be inhibited by the 
 products of connective tissue, or of lymphocytes or 
 lymphoid tissue. Even if little were learnt, a result I 
 refuse to contemplate, the result would be that one field 
 of research had been worked out on scientific lines. Such 
 research, however, would almost certainly suggest that 
 these diseases are indeed diseases of development, and must 
 be combated by rendering the organism stable rather than 
 by seeking any single cure, although it is by no means 
 impossible that some simple and direct cure may be found. 
 If it were discovered that some drug or drugs could 
 stimulate or inhibit epithelial and connective-tissue 
 growth the results might be of the greatest service. 
 
 If the results provisionally arrived at are summarized, 
 it may be said that : 
 
 1. The general biological conception of the organism 
 as a federation of organs and tissues, living in symbiosis, and 
 yet fundamentally hostile, or " selfish," is helpful in the 
 study of disease. 
 
 2. If atrophy or hypertrophy of the endocrines accounts 
 for certain disorders, the failure of normal relations between 
 less specialized tissues may account for others. 
 
 3. Order does not exist without control, and the essence 
 of malignancy is lack of control. 
 
 4. There is reason to suppose that epithelium and 
 connective tissue influence and control each other, and that 
 their failure to do so is the real cause of malignancy. 
 
 5. Irritation, including the effects of infection, acts by 
 destroying such balanced action. 
 
 6. The phenomena observed in the chorionic tropho- 
 blast, in chorion-epithelioma, in X-ray dermatitis and 
 cancer as well as the experimental growth of the two tissues 
 liable to malignancy, support the view of this relation-
 
 MALIGNANCY 59 
 
 ship between epithelium and connective tissue, and suggest 
 that a morbid condition of the pituitary may be a funda- 
 mental cause of the disease. 
 
 7. Malignancy is thus brought into relation with the 
 phenomena of growth, and can be classed with develop- 
 mental diseases, such as those due to endocrine atrophy 
 or hypertrophy. 
 
 8. Research should be directed to the discovery of the 
 tissue products or secretions by which epithelium and 
 connective tissue preserve their individuality and prevent 
 reversion in each other. 
 
 REFERENCES. 
 
 ADAMI, J. G. " Medical Sidelights on Evolution," 1919. 
 BAINBRIDGE, W. S. " Cancer Problem," New York, 1914. 
 BAYLISS, W. M. " Principles of General Physiology," 1915. 
 BLAND-SUTTON, Sir JOHN. " Tumours," 1918, Lecture III., 
 
 Chem.Journ., vol. xxx. pp. 186-208. 
 BUTLIN, Sir H. " Unicellula Cancri," 1912. 
 DARIER and WOLBARTH. Quoted by Hartzell, M. B., " Diseases 
 
 of the Skin," 1917. 
 ERLICH, P., and APOLANT, H. " Mouse-Tumours," Berlin Klin. 
 
 Woche, July 1905. 
 
 GREEN, C. E. " Cancer Problem," 1919. 
 HANDLEY, SAMPSON. "Melanotic Sarcoma," Hunterian Lecture, 
 
 1907, Lancet, London, 1905, vol. i. p. 909 ; ibid., 1907, 
 
 vol. i. p. 930; "Paget's Disease," Brit. Journ. of Surgery, 
 
 vol. vii. No. 26, 1919. 
 HERNAMAN- JOHNSON, F. " Comparative Value of X-rays and 
 
 Radium in Malignant Disease," Aberdeen, B.M.A. 
 KETTLE, E. H. "Pathology of Tumours," 1916; Path. Sect., 
 
 R.S.M., April 15, 1919. 
 KNOX, ROBERT. " Radiology," 1918. 
 MURPHY, J. B., and STURM, E. Journ. Exper. Med., Jan. 
 
 1919, iii. 
 PAGET, Sir JAMES. " Lectures on Surgical Pathology," 1853.
 
 60 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 Russ, SYDNEY, and CHAMBERS, H. " Exper. Studies with Small 
 Doses of X-rays," Lancet, London, April 26, 1909. 
 
 SHATTOCK, S. G. " Ovarian Teratomata," Lancet, London, 
 1918, vol. i. p. 479. 
 
 SPENCER, HERBERT B. " Lettsomian Lecture," Brit. Med. 
 Journ., London, Feb. 21, 1920.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 REPAIR IN EVOLUTION l 
 
 dissatisfaction with much orthodox biological 
 A opinion is growing can hardly be denied. Not a 
 little of this feeling is due to the fact that what is often 
 given as explanation cannot be resolved into factors 
 capable of appreciation, and, possibly, of measurement by 
 the intellect. The theory has to be accepted as more or 
 less a matter of faith, and the very definite relations of 
 biology to the allied sciences are almost entirely ignored. 
 If the views advanced in the previous chapters carry any 
 weight, this alone is sufficient to account for discontent. 
 Where there is a general tendency to rely on authority, 
 speculation is discouraged, for orthodoxy everywhere 
 rests on the native conservatism of man, and even the 
 revolutionary is at last capable of fatigue. As a 
 result, tentative hypotheses offered by the great leaders 
 tend to become objects of worship, and among their 
 less enterprising followers there arises a more or less fervent 
 conviction that, however unsatisfactory they appear now, 
 they will presently become demonstration. Thus the 
 theory of the germ-plasm, even in its later modified form, 
 seems held too dogmatically by many : the " nature " of 
 
 1 V. " The Function of Pathological States in Evolution," Zool. 
 Soc. Proc. 1918. The paper has been added to and altered.
 
 62 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 inherited living matter accounts for every organ as it 
 appears ; while all changes are due to obscure variations 
 of an advantageous kind which give the survivors in the 
 struggle a better chance. On analysis, such opinions do 
 not seem truly scientific, for the " nature " of the germ- 
 plasm can barely be distinguished from the directing 
 entelechy of Driesch, and if the Weismannian cloud of 
 ids and biophors is now somewhat condensed, the magic 
 determinant still remains in a concealed vitalism which is 
 exactly analogous, as regards the organism, to pantheism 
 as regards the universe. Nor, if we are told with certainty 
 that altered characteristics are not transmitted, is the 
 theory of small advantageous variations much more 
 satisfactory, if we know neither how they come, nor how 
 they are inherited. To say so much must not be regarded 
 as treating with disrespect its great author, without whom 
 we might still be wandering in the barren field of teleology. 
 To regard these theories as hasty and, perhaps, un- 
 sound explanations is not to accept without scrutiny 
 the theory of the transmission of acquired, or modified, 
 characteristics. Though this is a view that can be 
 defended on the physico-chemical grounds of catalysts 
 which are measurable determinants of a really scientific 
 order, experiments to prove the fact must take a very 
 long time, and we are compelled to rely on other methods 
 of proof. That the experiments of Tower and Kammerer, 
 for instance, suggest the transmission of modifications 
 cannot be denied. Such as oppose the general view that 
 the environment has thus an inheritable moulding influence 
 on the organism, seem to reply that those are only rare 
 and doubtful cases, whereas the theory of inherited 
 advantageous variations, whether continuous or dis- 
 continuous, can be made responsible for the whole of the
 
 REPAIR IN EVOLUTION 63 
 
 phenomena. As the conclusion is gradually being 
 strengthened that large variations of a Mendelian character 
 deal with other characteristics than those which are racial, 
 all who rely on inherited spontaneous variations are forced 
 back on the Darwinian view that small variations can 
 gradually, if of an advantageous kind, convert one species 
 into two or more, and that all living characteristics, or 
 organs themselves, are due to such a cumulative effect. 
 It is, of course, inferred and definitely stated by Darwin, 
 that any variation in the least degree injurious would 
 inevitably be destroyed. It is this statement I propose 
 to examine, and for the purpose of such an inquiry it 
 must be clearly understood what is meant by the word 
 " disadvantageous " or injurious. 
 
 At first sight nothing seems clearer. Why should we 
 doubt that any functional or organic failure is a handicap 
 in the biological race ? By functional trouble, of which 
 the cause is not obvious, we mean some hindrance, which 
 may be recovered from, to normal or physiological action. 
 It is due to factors which, for the most part, are unknown. 
 We do not doubt that there is a failure somewhere, which, 
 as regards certain cells, might be called organic, but often 
 we cannot do more than guess where the actual failure 
 occurs. In that advanced disorder of function which has 
 visible lesions, and destruction or irremediable alteration 
 of the individual parts of the machine, there is undoubted 
 organic disease. Can anything seem more certain than 
 the conclusion that any organism which fails in the estab- 
 lished functions of its species is as a fact severely handi- 
 capped, that the variation is disadvantageous, and cannot 
 possibly be transmitted either directly or by survival? 
 There are, however, some reasons for believing that this 
 inference is inaccurate, and that the function of disease
 
 64 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 in evolution is of much greater importance than that of 
 mere elimination. But pathology has very naturally 
 been neglected as a study by biologists. On the views 
 generally held, it has seemed sufficient to recognize that 
 disease destroyed organisms which obviously left offspring, 
 if it left them at all, that were handicapped even more 
 heavily than their parents. It has been understood that 
 their elimination was only a matter of time, and that neither 
 their virtues nor their failures could influence the race. 
 
 If there is one thing more than another which has 
 struck me when attempting to study these questions, it 
 is that too many men of science appear to believe that 
 any serious investigation of other branches than their 
 own is for them a waste of time. In no case is this more 
 common than in that of the biologist, who yet, by the 
 very name and nature of his task, should include in his 
 apparatus a considerable knowledge of everything which 
 deals with the organic, and even inorganic, world. Science, 
 however, is kept in more or less water-tight compartments, 
 and it seems left to the mathematician to hold the opinion 
 that his own branch of learning has, somehow or another, 
 deep relations with all things, including life itself. Even 
 by him it does not seem to have been pointed out that 
 in things living and non-living certain principles of con- 
 struction rule alike. However much they were wedded 
 to mechanico-physical explanations, biologists have 
 assuredly often ignored the fact that any organism is 
 construction, and knowing little of the laws of construc- 
 tion have ignored basal facts familiar to every architect 
 or even every artisan. It was reserved for Wolff, in 
 formulating his law of bone-growth and reaction to stress, 
 to propound a principle more far-reaching than he recog- 
 nized, when he showed that living bone, reacting to normal
 
 REPAIR IN EVOLUTION 65 
 
 or abnormal stimulation, can be proved to develop in 
 accordance with the principles of engineering and archi- 
 tecture, although he apparently laid far too little stress 
 on the action of muscle in bone transformation. This 
 law may, I feel assured, be extended to every living tissue, 
 and in such an extension will be found the key to many 
 phenomena still awaiting explanation. 
 
 To one who holds this view, the work lately done by 
 Starling on the Law of the Heart, which shows that the 
 force with which the heart contracts is directly propor- 
 tional to the length of the muscular fibres at the end of 
 the preceding diastole, is by no means surprising. It 
 is indeed on a par with the conclusions of Wolff as regards 
 bone, and might, I believe, have been deduced from it or 
 from the form I suggest, provided it is understood that each 
 varying tissue has its own acquired typical reaction. 
 
 If, then, it can be shown that disease has had a pro- 
 found effect upon the evolution of all organisms, and 
 that analogous results are found in every kind of human 
 constructive effort in such numbers as to suggest as a law 
 that all great variational developments result, not from 
 the happy-go-lucky aggregation of small advantageous 
 variation, or from discontinuous variation, whether of a 
 Mendelian character or not, but rather from partial failure 
 and repair, we seem to be in sight of a general principle of 
 profound importance. If this principle proves sound, it 
 is obvious that immense labour has been spent by biolo- 
 gists endeavouring to explain life without seeking help 
 from other workers. Though they may show some general 
 knowledge of the cell, and even special knowledge of the 
 reproductive cells, I find few who appear to have studied 
 general embryology, to speak only of one branch of physio- 
 logy. On the other hand, many physiologists and 
 5
 
 66 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 pathologists have done good work in some branches of 
 evolutionary theory. Bland-Sutton, in his fruitful little 
 book Evolution and Disease, pointed out that, " Pathology is 
 only a department of Biology, and it is important to bear 
 this in mind in studying disease." It is true that he went 
 little further than to show that what is pathological in one 
 organism may be physiological in another, and that many 
 diseases are reversions, that is, failure in normal growth. 
 Yet this greatly needed to be shown, and it is not to be 
 expected of a great pathologist and surgeon, and, per- 
 haps, the less the greater he is in his own branches of work, 
 that he should attempt tasks from which many of the 
 biologists themselves seemed to shrink. Claude Bernard 
 made similar remarks as to pathology. It is to be re- 
 gretted that a stumbling-block was placed in the path 
 of progress by Darwin's hopeless dictum as to the explana- 
 tion of variation, just as another was by Huxley when he 
 declared consciousness an insoluble problem. In every 
 science great discoverers have too often delayed progress 
 as much by authoritative unsound opinion as they have 
 advanced it. Every Bible is first a book of revolution, and 
 then a refuge for reaction. Yet no man can possibly know 
 all he should know for the purposes of his own work. 
 This fact affords the only justification for those, who 
 cannot pretend to profound knowledge in any special line, 
 attempting to solve problems which by their nature are 
 beyond the specialist. They may have been able to grasp 
 in a measure the general conclusions of each science, and 
 by a happy, perhaps accidental, combination, show at least 
 part of the forest to those more particularly occupied with 
 the trees themselves, or the flora of the undergrowth. 
 
 It is remarkable that hitherto no one seems to have made 
 the observation that reaction to an actual, or threatened,
 
 REPAIR IN EVOLUTION 67 
 
 breakdown is one of the basal laws of all construction 
 and organization. Yet none can read engineering without 
 observing that all development has followed such lines. 
 As new stresses are introduced, failure is threatened, and 
 steps are taken to obviate disaster. What is a patch on one 
 engine becomes organic in the next. Since waste of energy 
 can be looked on as pathological, we observe the reaction 
 in the engineer against such failures, as the atmospheric 
 engine is succeeded by improved forms ending in the quad- 
 ruple expansion engine. Many other instances could be 
 adduced in general or special engineering evolution ; but 
 the best illustration of the facts which need elucidation 
 can perhaps be found in Gothic architecture. If such a 
 demonstration of this general principle can be made it 
 will go far to obviate the objection, very likely to be urged, 
 that what occurs in human construction has no relevance 
 to the living organism, especially if it can be suggested 
 forcibly that human intelligence is in itself a reaction, 
 and that the law obtains in developments of all kinds. 
 It is, indeed, not going too far to declare that there is no 
 real qualitative difference between the cytoplasm of a test- 
 bearing protozoon as it elaborates its peculiar envelope 
 and the general cerebral protoplasm of a human com- 
 munity constructing some great edifice. That trial and 
 error are at the base of evolution is indeed implied in 
 the current teaching as to variation, and its extension to 
 intellectual processes will surprise no worker who has had 
 to deal experimentally with the unknown. We may expect, 
 but never know, where to look for failure till we see it. 
 When it is seen we can do our best, as reacting agents, to 
 remedy it. Having said so much, and leaving aside 
 the wider implications of such views, we may turn to such 
 a problem of construction as the evolution of a cathedral,
 
 68 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 in the hope that it may throw a light on other than archi- 
 tectural puzzles : merely observing, on the way, that 
 no general principle yet discovered is confined in its appli- 
 cation to one branch of knowledge. Having once found it, 
 our task is to employ it as a weapon of further analysis. 
 
 It is more or less a commonplace that function creates 
 structure, however Lamarckian that may sound, and in 
 the case of architecture of a religious order the function 
 which constructs is public worship. In fine climates the 
 necessary structure is often a roofless temple. In tropical 
 climates a flat roof may be needed as a protection against 
 the sun. In temperate climates a walled enclosure is 
 insufficient, and a flat-roofed structure cannot keep out 
 rain effectually or bear heavy snow. Thus arose the 
 pointed or sloping roof. But it has been said that " Gothic 
 architecture is not a style. It is a fight." The arch is a 
 mighty warrior. It gives and receives thrusts. The sloping 
 roof partakes of the same nature. Need created it, and the 
 nature of materials and the positional energy we call gravity 
 caused thrusts which endangered the simple walls of the 
 building, walls at first meant to support nothing but flat 
 roofs probably covered with brush or the like material. To 
 build stronger walls might have occurred to the primitive 
 architect, but as the danger was immediate, he probably 
 at once shored those in existence, and then built others 
 at a right angle to act as buttresses. In the meantime 
 the worshippers increased in numbers, and it is indulging in 
 no flight of fancy to suppose the later builder saw that if 
 the new external walls were roofed over, and doorways 
 cut into the main building, there would be an immediate 
 increase of space by the creation of chapels. Such a series 
 of embryonic additional walled spaces, with further door- 
 ways in them leading to each other, obviously gave him the
 
 REPAIR IN EVOLUTION 69 
 
 aisles. The flying buttresses, which are such a feature in 
 great Gothic architecture had, I can only suppose, a like 
 origin. They were originally buttress walls carried up to 
 the roof. At some period a genius, already acquainted with 
 arcuated structure, saw that if the inside of these walls 
 was cut away, they would still take a heavy thrust and 
 lighten the rest of the building. If, however, on being 
 converted into such slender stone shores they showed signs 
 of yielding, what could be easier than to pile some of the 
 removed material upon the base of the flying arch, and 
 thus create the beginning of the pinnacle ? Though an 
 architect might develop such a rough statement, he would 
 be the first to admit that it represents in few words much 
 of the evolution of a church : that is, he would own the 
 structure sprang from need, and that each new need 
 caused a constructional failure which, when strengthened 
 and corrected, was the cause of further structure. He 
 would further tell us that all good ornament is organic ; 
 that it springs naturally from the work already done, being 
 in its origin just the little more needed to give a margin 
 of safety, though on it later are exercised the aesthetic 
 faculties of man, which are again a response to the need 
 of full satisfaction for the instinct of workmanship. 
 Human ornament is in fact strongly homologous, if we may 
 use that word here, with the beauty of very energetic 
 birds, who carry out by virtue of their free energy the 
 extension of structures and colours already existing in their 
 less brilliant forms. That, however, is by the way. The 
 main fact we are concerned with is that the building as a 
 whole is evolved through trial and error, through failure 
 and repair, through a threatened structure to a more com- 
 plete and adequate one for increased function. In a word, 
 the great origin of structure was failure after failure duly
 
 70 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 compensated for. Is there any reason for believing that 
 variation in the structure of living organisms follows 
 exactly the same principle ? Are we entitled to say that 
 the mammal, for instance, with all its complexity, is the 
 result of infinite ages of functional failure or disease which 
 was met by processes of repair and reaction ? In a word, 
 can we speak of the evolutionary value of disease, of im- 
 paired function, of disadvantageous variations ? It seems 
 possible to do so, if what is true of one structure is roughly 
 true of another. 
 
 It may seem absurd to talk of the value of dis- 
 advantageous variation; but it is no more absurd than 
 to imply that all variation is advantageous because it is 
 perpetuated. What is useful at one period may be harmful 
 at another, and embryologists thoroughly understand that 
 developments useful in foetal or larval life may open up 
 many dangers for the adult. The real point to be con- 
 sidered is whether organisms as a species do not vary and 
 run great, even largely destructive, risks by an increased 
 pressure of function which, in the few that finally react, or 
 whose descendants react, to such stress, results at last in 
 structure that is advantageous as altered. The given 
 variation in itself may be a failure of what was normal 
 function in the species, and we should therefore as patho- 
 logists or physiologists speak of it as a disease ; but if 
 the few that recover become a new species, a mended race, 
 it is no longer disease. After many generations it may be 
 truly advantageous to individuals. Have such processes 
 occurred in the evolution of organisms, as they undoubtedly 
 have in the arts and social progress, where we often observe 
 political failure of organization result in ad hoc reaction 
 which leads to a changed social form ? I have no doubt 
 that they do, and many organs in mammals, to speak only
 
 REPAIR IN EVOLUTION 71 
 
 of them, show it. It is, in fact, a universal principle. As 
 beavers patch up a dam when it yields or threatens to give 
 way, so tissues, organs, and societies react to threatened 
 disaster. In no tissue is this clearer than in bone. It 
 is true that Wolff's law only deals directly with mechanical 
 stresses, since it runs : " Every change in the form and 
 position of the bones or their function is accompanied 
 by certain definite changes in their internal architecture, 
 and by equally definite secondary alterations of their 
 external conformation in accordance with mathematical 
 law " ; but I hope to show reasons for concluding that 
 such a law may be stated in more general terms, and 
 applied to every tissue and organ, provided we add, as 
 suggested before, that the more complex the tissue or the 
 organ the greater the liability of failure, and that each 
 tissue reacts in a typical way. 
 
 It is unnecessary to go into details of osteogenesis and 
 morphology. It has been recognized by engineers that the 
 head of the femur is formed exactly in accordance with 
 mechanical law. Had any of them been required to design 
 a structure fit for undergoing the stresses borne by the femur 
 in its development and af ter-life, he would have sketched a 
 figure extremely like it, not only in its general shape, but 
 in the trabeculae which support the bone in every direc- 
 tion where extra stresses are applied by normal function. 
 The important point to note is the fact that femoral 
 development follows stress in individual development, 
 from which we must draw the conclusion that it followed 
 stress during evolution, not that its value for complex 
 function was gradually increased by chance or " spon- 
 taneous " variation, unless we attribute to " spontaneous " 
 a meaning which Darwin never gave it, seeing that he 
 denied knowing how variation arose. All the variations
 
 72 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 were definite responses, and it is easy to infer that before 
 response became rapid and easy every kind of disaster and 
 disablement must have occurred to those subjected to 
 reaction-provoking stresses. The very process of adapta- 
 tion (and on these lines "adaptation" is no longer a 
 mystic word) implies long periods of disordered function 
 and poor structural response even in those who survived 
 after repair. But now bone is so plastic and fluent that 
 when it is grafted the osteoblasts and osteoclasts use and 
 shape it according to the form of the main bone of which 
 it becomes a part. For, according to Keith, Wolff's law 
 may be more simply expressed if we say : " Osteoblasts at 
 all times build and unbuild according to the stresses to 
 which they are subjected." 
 
 When we speak of repair it may be noted that the 
 treatises on this subject are strictly limited in their 
 purview. They mostly follow Hunter, a vitally important 
 figure in the history of pathology, and indeed of all medical 
 science, who, however, lacked the apparatus of knowledge 
 now at every one's disposal. We learn a great deal about 
 the repair of wounds and fractures : of the functions of 
 the fibroblasts or of the wandering cells of the blood- 
 stream, and are told, lately, much of regeneration ; but of 
 the evolutionary value of organized exudations we hear 
 little or nothing. Nor has it been suggested that it is to 
 this and analogous processes that much new structure is due. 
 That this is so is strikingly apparent, as I shall attempt 
 to show, in many organs of a highly specialized type. In 
 no structure, perhaps, is the process so clearly seen as 
 in the mammalian heart, which is a perfect museum of 
 evolutionary failures and dislocations, compensated for by 
 an extraordinary complication of patched-up tissues and 
 altered muscle in which, perhaps, one tissue takes on
 
 REPAIR IN EVOLUTION 73 
 
 the functions of another, and some evolutionary rem- 
 nants long survive without function. I was, indeed, first 
 led to take this general view of the variational value of 
 pathological conditions by observing that the heart, when 
 laid open from any aspect, powerfully suggested an 
 organized or cured aneurism. By this I do not mean 
 that it is now in any way aneurismal, or that the heart is 
 descended from such a large and definite breakdown. The 
 view put forward is that the complex machinery of the 
 chorda tendinece, the columnce carnece, the papillares 
 musculi, the moderator band and the valves generally, 
 gives it the appearance of a repaired organ, and inevitably 
 suggests that, during its evolution, fibrosis and the reactions 
 of stressed tissues moulded and re-moulded it on the 
 general lines of mechanical construction, breakdown, and 
 repair. Many must have made the same observations, 
 even if they have not come to similar conclusions. The 
 anatomist and pathologist perhaps know their subjects 
 too well, and are necessarily greatly dominated by current 
 theory. The general adaptation of the heart to the work 
 it performs may well delight the anatomist as he studies 
 its machinery. His main business is not evolution. The 
 pathologist, on the other hand, observing its many failures, 
 is scarcely likely to discern that by failure itself may come 
 eventual perfection, and while the physiologist considers 
 its functions rather than its apparatus, he studies it as it 
 is, not as it was. In each case the observer may not see the 
 forest for the trees. Yet when we look at the partially 
 repaired aneurism with its fibrous growths, and turn to the 
 opened heart, the essential likeness of the chorda tendinece, 
 for all their definite functions, to the rude fibres of an 
 aneurism, is obvious. Is such a likeness an accident of 
 evolution and pathology, or are we to consider the heart
 
 74 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 as much an organized dilatation sac of the whole fused 
 circulatory canal as the cured aneurism is of a part of it ? 
 It is in embryology that we seek for confirmation of what 
 is suggested by anatomy. But even anatomy alone offers 
 powerful proof of the view that the heart, as we know it, 
 is the latest result of repeated failures of the circulatory 
 canal under strain, and of the repairs effected by the stressed 
 tissues in their response to changed and abnormal stimuli, 
 just as bone alters under its particular stresses. During 
 embryological life there is found in the heart a small patch 
 of non-functioning muscle in the anterior segment of the 
 mitral valve. Its presence is intelligible if we consider 
 it a relic of a disrupted and repaired organ. The muscles 
 of the heart are obviously homologous with those of the 
 arteries. Yet they have become striated although they are, 
 of course, still involuntary. Non-striated muscle is the 
 earliest in evolution. It seems that the increased func- 
 tioning of the cardiac muscle has converted it into its 
 striated form, so that it resembles skeletal muscles, which 
 are much more active than non-striated muscle. The 
 whole histology of cardiac muscle probably represents the 
 result of great strains. Structures such as the disks or 
 bands of Ebarth are found nowhere else, and may be the 
 result of peculiar stress. There are even portions of muscle 
 which no longer perform muscular functions. Their 
 fibres do not contract, but serve instead to conduct 
 stimuli as if they were nervous tissue. All tissue is con- 
 ductive, but the Bundle of His, with its Purkinje fibres, 
 which carries the impulse from the auricle to the ventricle, 
 transmits messages at ten or twelve times the normal 
 muscular rate. When it fails there is heart-block. In 
 the embryo the valves arise from the cardiac walls, and are 
 composed of muscular tissue, which by the action of fibro.
 
 REPAIR IN EVOLUTION 75 
 
 blasts gradually become non-muscular. This must have 
 been originally a pathological process. It is a reversion, 
 a degeneration made use of. We observe analogous, or 
 shall I say homologous ? results in the hypertrophied heart. 
 The normal male heart weighs about eleven ounces. In 
 some cases of aortic stenosis it may weigh over thirty ounces. 
 In such hypertrophied muscle are often found fibrous 
 tissues which probably represent the connective tissue of 
 muscular fibres which have atrophied from overstrain. The 
 attachments of the mitral valve are less muscular and more 
 fibrous than those of the tricuspid. The greater elasticity 
 of the tricuspid papillares musculi and the annular muscles 
 of the base of the ventricle thus allows an overfull right 
 ventricle, which is so much less powerful than the left, 
 to be relieved by the temporary functional incompetence 
 of the tricuspid valve. In the reptile with a functioning 
 foramen the valves are purely mechanical, as pressure is 
 relieved by the patent orifice. The fossa ovalis in the 
 mammal is a remnant of the early communication between 
 the auricles. In a large number of normal hearts there is 
 a small valvular passage yet remaining in the left margin 
 of the fossa. None of these phenomena seem capable of 
 explanation as the result of spontaneous variations 
 arising from some theoretic instability of the organism. 
 To argue that they are is to give biologic mystics a chance. 
 It appears obvious from all these facts taken together 
 that cardiac evolution has been a series of caused varia- 
 tions due to increased and varying stresses, which acted 
 not only as a moulding force on the shape and musculature 
 of the heart, but on all its appendages. In the muscle of 
 the ventricular walls with its extraordinary complexity of 
 layers and interlaced fibres lies powerful evidence of such 
 reactions. In both ventricles there are seven muscular
 
 76 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 layers, while in the arteries there seems but one. In the 
 left ventricle these layers are obviously thicker and stronger 
 than in the less stressed right cavity. But how did the 
 ventricular cavities acquire more layers than the arteries ? 
 No new muscle fibres arise after birth, and yet there is 
 obvious reason for believing that stress can be responded 
 to by increase of muscle fibre during evolution. In the 
 gravid uterus the smooth fibres of the wall increase 
 to eleven times their normal length, and are from two to 
 five times as broad. So far as we know there cannot be 
 new fibres in it. But in evolution new fibres are un- 
 doubtedly found. In the arteries, the fibres of non-striated 
 muscle in the tunica media are for the most part circular, 
 but they appear to have more or less longitudinal branches 
 which interlock with like branches of the neighbouring 
 fibres. One of the most prominent features of an in- 
 dividual aneurism is the thinning out, and sometimes the 
 disappearance, of the tunica media. The muscle fibres in 
 such cases are completely broken down, and if the aneurism 
 is repaired in individuals the work is done mostly by an 
 increase of the connective-tissue elements. The process 
 is said by some to be a reparatory endarteritis, in which 
 the tissues of the adventitia proliferate actively. But the 
 evolutionary process has obviously taken the path of 
 increase and reactive proliferation of the muscular elements 
 of the media. 
 
 Without attempting a task of which I am incapable and 
 endeavouring to elucidate the problem of the origin of 
 circulatory systems in a primary vascular sponge-work, 
 through which the fluids of the primitive organism were 
 propelled by contractile tissue, it may be noted that the 
 columns and chordce rise from such a sponge-work which, 
 at an early embryonic period, fills the primitive ventricle.
 
 REPAIR IN EVOLUTION 77 
 
 To interpret such an origin and their present functions it 
 seems they must be looked on as reaction products found 
 useful when the chambers of the heart arose as dilatations 
 of the primitive tube. Such dilatations were probably, 
 I would even say certainly, failures of the walls. The 
 incomplete pathological disaster of a repaired aneurism 
 helps us to understand such evolutionary failure and repair 
 as enabled the evolving heart to endure greater stresses, 
 and be once more repaired. It may be added that the 
 sponge-work of the evolving primary ventricle is strictly 
 analogous to the vascular spongy tissues seen in the male 
 organ. Every pathologist will admit that such a structure 
 may be logically compared with a vascular aneurism. 
 The path laid down by pathology is trodden by physiology. 
 It follows that during evolution there must have been an 
 immense destruction of organisms whose circulating canals 
 did not react, and numbers which retained their unaltered 
 " specific " characters. The same process goes on to-day. 
 Though many die of cardiac disease, it may be that much 
 youthful functional trouble, and even more serious adult 
 disorders, are even now re-moulding the heart. No organ 
 is perfect ; if it does not degenerate it progresses. Though 
 such processes are " disease," it by no means follows that 
 they will be destructive, any more than that the functional 
 incapacity of the tricuspid valves in athletes, which 
 probably precedes what is known as " second wind," is 
 anything now but a cardiac safety-valve. 
 
 As we learn more of the heart and its latent capacities 
 we may, perhaps, say with the late Dr. H. G. Button, " we 
 trust nature too little, to say the least of it." But there are, 
 of course, great difficulties to overcome before we can hope 
 to understand how the cardiac musculature has altered, 
 and may still be changing by the addition of new fibres.
 
 78 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 As yet, little is known of myogenesis. Like a neuron, a 
 muscle cell seems to last a lifetime, and though both may 
 degenererate or die, neither proliferates after the early 
 period of development. But whatever their histogenesis, 
 new fibres do appear in evolution. Harvey did not refuse 
 to believe in the validity of his own conclusions, because 
 he lived before Leeuwenhoek. With considerable hesita- 
 tion I venture to suggest that morphogenetic stress is at 
 its height during foetal development. The child in utero 
 has not, perhaps, the calm and happy life commonly 
 attributed to it. On the contrary, it probably leads a 
 strenuous existence, and if it inherits a new weakness this 
 is shown just where and when new stresses find plastic 
 embryonic tissues to respond to them. If such a specu- 
 lation is sound it accounts for many phenomena. But in 
 any case, whatever the machinery of inheritance and 
 evolutionary repair, it is certain that new fibres arise where 
 they are needed. 1 The origin of the cremaster muscle as a 
 lately evolved support for the testis certainly strengthens 
 this view. Hunter could not account for its appearance 
 during embryonic life, when the testis occupies its original 
 position, and the cremaster serves no purpose. In the 
 testiconda such a muscle is not found. It must obviously 
 have arisen as the result of stress during the evolutionary 
 descent of the testis, and cannot be accounted for except 
 by such stresses and foetal hormonic influences. 
 
 If such views in any way represent the biological 
 history of the heart, it is obvious that many of the opinions 
 of variation usually held are without foundation. Every 
 variation is definitely caused ; it is in no sense accidental 
 or spontaneous ; it may not even be at once advantageous 
 to the individual ; on the contrary, it may be a severe 
 
 1 See Appendix B. The Peroneus Tertius.
 
 REPAIR IN EVOLUTION 79 
 
 handicap which puts greater general stress on all who 
 experience it, though such stresses fall short of those which 
 cause death. Variations of this order may only be advan- 
 tageous to the whole species as a continuing race. They 
 may destroy, and doubtless have destroyed, individuals 
 without number at an earlier age than the usual life-period 
 of the unvaried type. We may possibly imagine a part of 
 humanity, now responding to stresses which make the 
 heart do more work and fail earlier, displaying such energy 
 during their shorter life as to displace those with a normal 
 cardiac mechanism which survives to the average age of 
 man. It is to be inferred from these considerations that 
 the structure of an organism is not a congeries of minute 
 fortuitous advantageous variations, nor the gradual 
 massing of details in an orthogenetic line, nor the result of 
 large discontinuous variations due to chromosomatic 
 inheritance, but a complex of definite reactions to definite 
 stresses. The true theory of living structure is that its 
 growth is neither casual nor foreseen, but that it is what we 
 may call, in political language, the " opportunism " of the 
 organism as a whole. Every advance is a forced, even a 
 desperate, experiment. Life, like a hypothesis or a dam, 
 is built up by stopping leaks. 
 
 The evolution of the stomach seems to have followed 
 the lines suggested for cardiac development. From the 
 physiological point of view, an intestinal tube which be- 
 comes dilated cannot be considered anything but patho- 
 logical. It has failed under the stresses on it, but the 
 organism which reacted turned a weak dilatation sac into 
 a strong permanent food pouch. The results to the reacting 
 organisms were many. The ingested food became tem- 
 porarily static, was more thoroughly dealt with, and the 
 organism was not continually feeding. Its whole available
 
 80 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 energy was not devoted to nutrition ; it had time at its 
 disposal, and could develop other functions leading to 
 further structures. That the mammalian stomach is 
 such an organized failure is suggested forcibly by the 
 musculature. In the small intestine this is composed of 
 two layers of fibres, circular and longitudinal. In the 
 stomach it is made of three sets, an inmost layer of oblique 
 fibres being added. This oblique layer is obviously a 
 later growth and, as would be expected on the lines laid 
 down as to disaster and repair, its strongest fibres are 
 found supporting the greater curvature or dilatation of 
 the stomach. When speaking of these muscle fibres, it 
 is, of course, understood that they not only resisted the 
 passive strains of ingested food, but also exercised their 
 active basal function of contractility as well. This later 
 oblique layer is naturally less well developed than the 
 longitudinal and circular fibres. Other oblique fibres are 
 formed about the pylorus, where they form the sphincter. 
 I suggest that these oblique muscle fibres arose at points of 
 strain, under intense stimulation. The dilated pouch has 
 reacted in accordance with mechanical law, just as the 
 heart did with its more complex arrangement of oblique 
 fibres woven into a structure capable of giving in the left 
 ventricle a thrust of over fifty pounds. The reacting 
 organism is no fool of a mechanic either in its bones or its 
 muscles, and these phenomena are additional reasons for 
 extending Wolff's law to all tissues if it is understood that, 
 while bone responds to gravitational and compressional 
 stresses, and to the tensile stress of muscle, the fibres of 
 muscle produce the very stresses to which they respond 
 by increase of bulk and strength. If protoplasm did not 
 so react there would be no problems to solve. 
 
 Such views on the mammalian gastric apparatus are so
 
 REPAIR IN EVOLUTION 81 
 
 obviously supported by the embryology of the organ that 
 there is no need to go into details beyond noticing that 
 in the fourth week there comes the first dorsal bulging in 
 the foregut. But if evolution is still proceeding, is it 
 absurd to suggest that the common symptom of a general 
 disturbance of health known as dilated stomach may be a 
 pathological process actually in the process of becoming 
 physiological ? According to some physicians, few modern 
 stomachs do not suffer at times from an amount of 
 dilatation which is pathological ; i.e. the gastric mus- 
 culature fails to react correctly. The stomach may yet 
 be such a functioning dilatation pouch as to enable the 
 human race to do with no more than one meal a day, or 
 even less. Our descendants will have all the more time 
 for work. This by no means implies that the empty 
 stomach should be any larger than it is now in healthy 
 subjects. Before the invention of X-rays the gastric 
 apparatus was always pictured in text-books as usually 
 seen on the post-mortem table. The dead stomach was 
 shown as the portrait of the live one : the weakened pouch 
 of the sick man as that of the live and healthy subject. 
 But nowadays it is known that such extreme dilatation is 
 natural only when a large meal has been taken. When the 
 healthy stomach has emptied itself it has contracted so 
 that it nearly resumes its ancient cylindrical character 
 and then goes into a state of rest or relaxation. With 
 further development it might hold still more, and yet react 
 in the same way. The suggestion that functional failure 
 or disease, which becomes organic and destructive in many, 
 may, in reacting and surviving organisms, alter their outlook 
 on life and all their activities, seems to me powerfully 
 reinforced by these considerations. The disadvantageous 
 variation does work, and finally improves the race. It
 
 82 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 is a big subject, not to be enlarged on here ; but there still 
 remains much work to be done as to the indirect influences 
 of diseases, infections, and otherwise, upon physical and 
 cerebral development. It may be suggested that the 
 acuity of sensation and perception of those affected, but 
 not disabled, by tuberculosis and the slow acquisition of 
 immunity, may have modified human character to a 
 marked degree. 
 
 It can even be shown that disadvantageous variations 
 actually become permanent racial characters. We may 
 consider hernias. During the processes of evolution, a 
 mammalian hernia seems to have occurred almost univer- 
 sally, and to have established itself as normally physio- 
 logical. The tunica vaginalis of the testis is actually part 
 of the original peritoneal sac, as can be seen in the embryo. 
 This was, of course, observed by John Hunter. During 
 foetal life it is separated from the parent sac. In whatever 
 sense we now call such a change physiological, it seems 
 impossible to regard it as originally anything but patho- 
 logical. I certainly do not know how we can describe the 
 scrotum as anything else than the coverings of an evolu- 
 tionary hernial sac, which is not only of no advantage, but 
 a positive danger to most male animals. This view has been 
 supported by Bramann. In some, the pigs for instance, 
 the testicles do not descend into an external pouch, but 
 are supported and protected by the normal skin tissues, 
 not by a thinned and delicate integument of later develop- 
 ment like the scrotum, a tissue still scantily supplied 
 with the non-striated muscular fibres which might have 
 reinforced it, and are, perhaps, now developing slowly. 
 When we consider the rarity of muscular fibres in human 
 skin tissues in comparison with those of animals, their 
 greater frequency in the scrotum and perinaeum suggests
 
 REPAIR IN EVOLUTION 83 
 
 that they are a reaction product, a forced revival of the 
 primitive panniculus. They act in the dartos, or deeper 
 layers of the scrotal dermis, at right angles to the rugse, 
 and are something of a support. The pink colour of this 
 structure is due to the presence of these muscular fibres. 
 They are not connected in any way. with the cremaster 
 muscle, and therefore are not affected by the cremasteric 
 reflex. In many senses the descent of the testes cannot 
 be called advantageous. It causes a weak spot, recognized 
 as such by men and animals. The Japanese wrestlers 
 are said to be trained from earliest youth to return 
 the testes into the inguinal canals. If the translation 
 of the testis from a safe place to an exposed one has had 
 any good results, they have been indirect and only 
 discoverable, though not yet discovered, over long periods 
 during which the change must have been disastrous to 
 many. To argue that they were advantageous to begin 
 with is to destroy the authority of reason. It is true 
 that at the present stage of human development an un- 
 descended testis rarely produces normal spermatozoa. But 
 to argue that the testes descended because the rise of 
 intra-abdominal pressure produced conditions incompatible 
 with racial continuance seems to ignore physical causation 
 in favour of a partially teleological explanation. It cannot 
 be argued that their present situation was always the best, 
 or that their early position was disadvantageous in face 
 of the fact that in elephants, seals, and walruses the testes 
 remain undescended, and that the boar's are at least in- 
 conspicuous and protected by normal skin tissues. As a 
 rough partial illustration, it may be said that though an 
 emigrant's descendants might do badly in his native village, 
 it does not follow that they might not have functioned 
 there successfully if their parent had not left it.
 
 84 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 It may seem an undue extension of the view that 
 pathology has played an immense part in evolution, if it is 
 suggested that it was upon pathological conditions that the 
 very existence of the Metazoa depended. There can be 
 no doubt that they originated from some protozoon by a 
 failure of normal physiological fission. We see here how 
 theories of disease may be modified according to the point 
 of view taken. From that, shall I say, of a protozoan 
 Hippocrates or Hunter nothing can be more obvious than 
 that a failure of mitosis would be a calamity, the birth of 
 a monster, of Siamese twins, among the normally con- 
 stituted unicellular organisms. It is still in the processes 
 of reproduction that we find the strongest evidence of the 
 part played by disease. 
 
 When considering such problems in this light, it seems 
 somewhat difficult to account for the satisfaction of 
 many with the theory of small cumulative advantageous 
 variations. What ground is there for imagining such 
 machinery could result in a complex series of adaptations 
 such as the uterus, and what we may call its habits and 
 customs in dealing with the embryo from the entrance of 
 the ovum till birth ? Even those who adapt to their 
 own ideas some theory of large discontinuous variation 
 will, in the end, be compelled to attribute the uterine growth 
 and functions to a mystic power or virtue in the original 
 germ. They may follow some philosophers, and " unpack " 
 powers out of a conjurer's bag without telling us how 
 they got there. Yet if we regard the uterus as the result 
 of tissue reactions under abnormal stimuli, being guided 
 in research by the processes seen every day in disease, the 
 variations, whether small or large, continuous or discon- 
 tinuous, assume an aspect neither fanciful nor mystical, 
 and our need for biological faith is reduced to a decent
 
 REPAIR IN EVOLUTION 85 
 
 scientific minimum. To say so much is not to deny that 
 small variations may finish, or polish, a rough incomplete 
 adaptation. From an eolith to the perfection of Chellean 
 art may be such a process, but the first eolith was no small 
 variation. 
 
 The fact that the embryo acts upon the maternal 
 organism as a parasite against which the mother has to 
 be protected, is commonly recognized, but I have not seen 
 the obvious conclusion drawn that the whole history of 
 the mammal must have been due originally to a pathological 
 accident in some one or more of their ancestors. The 
 mammalian animal still lays eggs, but they are not ex- 
 truded. When such retention first took place, it must 
 have been due to an accidental pathological delay of the 
 travelling ovum, owing perhaps to catarrh of the tube. 
 Even now the mother has to be rendered immune to the 
 products of the offspring. Many of the phenomena of early 
 gestation are those of immunization, in some cases a very 
 slow process, as is shown in human beings by vomiting and 
 malaise. It has, moreover, not been clearly or generally 
 recognized, except by pathologists, that the very methods 
 by which the ovum attaches itself to the uterine wall are, so 
 far as the hostess is concerned, actually pathological and 
 bordering on the malignant. Yet they have resulted in a 
 series of protective reactions which save the parent and 
 permit the growth of the parasite. The method by which 
 the ovum becomes partially buried in the tissues is obviously 
 of a destructive kind, and curiously analogous to the 
 malignant processes seen in chorion-epithelioma. Bland- 
 Sutton remarks, "This disease is instructive because the 
 erosive action of the trophoblast is the physiological type 
 of the invasiveness so characteristic of many varieties of 
 cancer." It must, I think, be added, that it is the balance
 
 86 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 established by reaction which makes the trophoblastic 
 action physiological. 1 
 
 That the influence of the ovum on the undeveloped tube 
 must have been of an exceedingly dangerous character is 
 now seen in tubal pregnancies during which the chorionic 
 villi frequently penetrate the wall of the tube, which does 
 not react as powerfully as the uterus. Such a process in 
 the uterus, which is itself a tubal dilatation, is now normal, 
 because these villi, the earlier nutrition roots or organs of 
 the parasite, are prevented from injuring the uterine wall 
 irrevocably by the transformation of the reactive uterine 
 decidua and the chorionic villi and the allantois of the 
 foetus into the combined temporary organ known as the 
 placenta. It may be noted that the non-placental mammals 
 are less exposed to the destructive and toxic effects of their 
 offspring, as they are born at an earlier stage than in the case 
 of the deciduate mammals. The marsupial foetus is about 
 half an inch in length when transferred to the milk-pouch. 
 It is impossible to look at the placenta without recognizing 
 that it is what we may call a compromise growth, one which 
 serves the embryo without destroying the parent hostess. 
 That all mammals are not yet fully armed against any 
 morbid alteration of function in the penetrating chorionic 
 villi is seen, as suggested above, in chorion-epithelioma, 
 where the energy of the villi trophoblasts leads to a 
 malignant overgrowth of the epithelial elements, which the 
 maternal tissues fail to inhibit. The hydatid mole, which 
 does not as a rule become malignant, is a case where 
 such inhibition has been sufficient. These phenomena 
 establish on a firm foundation the view that the uterus and 
 its reactions during gestation are definite protective pro- 
 cesses or variations springing originally from a purely 
 
 1 See Chapter II., Malignancy.
 
 REPAIR IN EVOLUTION 87 
 
 pathological accident in some ancestors of the mammalians. 
 However complex the embryology of the uterus and its 
 appendages, the broad facts are compatible with this 
 view, which is strengthened by the later parasitic history 
 of the offspring after birth. The mammae appear to be a 
 compromise between the needs of the infant and the pro- 
 tection of the mother ; it has been suggested that they 
 originated in sore or tender spots on the epithelium most 
 exposed to the assaults of the parasite. Whether this is 
 true or not, the growth of the nipple is a complex variation 
 depending on the mechanical action of sucking with a 
 reaction proliferation of the epithelial elements of the 
 sweat and sebaceous glands, and an increased blood-supply 
 as special maternal protection against oral infection. It 
 seems to me that few stronger instances can be found of 
 the fact that the development of many organs, if not all 
 of them, is the result of direct reactions or adaptations, 
 which are in the nature of repair to tissues otherwise likely 
 to suffer disastrously. 
 
 It is large macroscopic results of this order which enable 
 us to reason about other finer reactions, and even help us 
 to link to the general process those of a microscopic and 
 ultra-microscopic character which we class under " im- 
 munity." Such phenomena are reactions under stress 
 which, by the provocation of catalysts, influence life. If, 
 indeed, much of human character is similar reaction, 
 perfect or imperfect, to the infections to which the race has 
 been and still is exposed, psychology itself must at last be 
 classed as the result of physical reactions a conclusion 
 fully in accord with the work of Pavlov on conditioned 
 reflexes. 
 
 If any further illustration of the conclusions so far 
 suggested is necessary, it may be found in the fixation of
 
 88 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 the mesentery, and the changes undergone during its 
 development. It has often been pointed out that the 
 embryonic processes by which it is made secure are 
 histologically those of plastic organized exudations, i.e. 
 those which have been invaded by fibroblasts. These 
 attachments do not come about at the same period of 
 foetal development, and it seems of significance when we 
 note that the mesentery of the small gut has an oblique 
 attachment, to the posterior abdominal wall from the 
 duodenum to the right iliac fossa, only found in animals 
 which have assumed the upright posture. This comes 
 into existence as late as the fourth or fifth month of 
 foetal development. Before this band formed there must 
 have been a great series of disasters, for even now the 
 last part of the mesentery to become attached to the 
 abdominal wall, that is, the angle between the ileum 
 and ascending colon, sometimes remains free. A volvulus 
 may easily form there by rotation of the ileo-colic 
 loop. The whole history suggests a series of lymph 
 effusions, caused by pathological states, some of which 
 were sorted out by the lethal process of natural selection, 
 the remainder surviving and leaving offspring with the 
 liability to organize the effusion in the safe way. The 
 pathology of those cases, in which what are known as Lane's 
 Kinks can be found, is obviously of a similar character. 
 The stasis of the affected bowel causes lymph effusion, and 
 the formation of bands which are morphologically homo- 
 logous with the early attachment of the mesentery. In 
 Keith's paper, " Nature of Peritoneal Adhesions," I find 
 noted the normal loose network of connective-tissue bands 
 between the elephant's lung and the pleura. This is a 
 physiological development of evolutionary adhesions, and 
 clearly supports the pathological development of many
 
 REPAIR IN EVOLUTION 89 
 
 large variations. With regard to mesenteric bands the 
 same worker says : "In securing a proper fixation of the 
 abdominal viscera Nature calls to her aid processes which 
 are usually regarded as pathological." In this passage 
 " Nature " can obviously be translated into a series of 
 modifiable and transmissible phenomena. 
 
 After reviewing phenomena such as these, the conclusion 
 seems inevitable that single small favourable variations 
 have not done the whole work of evolution. They may 
 play their part as correlated changes ; but they then take 
 their place in a series of which the causes can be recognized. 
 In combination with reasonable views of use and disuse, and 
 of increased or decreased blood-supply, they may, perhaps, 
 be held to explain such phenomena as the delicate 
 co-aptation of some cardiac valves. Their place in the 
 explanation of the phenomena of mimicry seems obvious. 
 But though they may help us to comprehend how tissues 
 become finished structures, if they are combined with the 
 results of functional energy, they yield no hint as to great 
 or decisive developments, and the mechanism involved in 
 them. If the reasons adduced for the thesis laid down carry 
 any weight, it is obvious that many, if not most, of the 
 really decisive variations in all internal structure depended, 
 and still depend, not on variations which can be called 
 favourable, but on those that for the major portion of the 
 organisms involved are directly disastrous ; not on varia- 
 tions which are small, but on those which are big 
 enough to be appreciable as the cause of immense 
 functional and structural results ; not on changes 
 which can in any sense be called spontaneous, by 
 which we may suppose are meant those no cause can 
 be assigned to, but on variations, which, though they 
 occurred ages ago, were obviously due to the very
 
 90 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 same causes that the pathologist can demonstrate to be 
 working at the present day. Only such organisms as 
 respond by direct reactions in a manner that finally turns 
 out to be useful, or at the very least compatible with life 
 and reproduction, are able to survive. The whole of 
 growth and development thus becomes largely a function 
 of effective morphogenetic repair to organic failure and 
 disease. 
 
 Though this is not the place to deal at length with the 
 vexed question of transmission of modifications, it may 
 be remarked that the foregoing arguments seem to imply 
 that such alterations, as a matter of fact, are inherited. I 
 think some progress can be made if we simply assume 
 provisionally that organisms do tend to repeat them- 
 selves, and that it is unlikeness rather than likeness which 
 requires explanation. We know that gross unlikeness is 
 almost always due to a lack or excess of some internal 
 secretion, hormone, or enzyme, and from this it may be 
 inferred that likeness is due to such catalytic machinery 
 coming over in the zygote, and to each differentiation 
 producing anew its own peculiar products which stimulate 
 or inhibit further growth and differentiation. Some 
 time ago I was struck by a remark of Starling's, that each 
 new organism seemed a fresh " creation." He gave this 
 up on account of the difficulty he found in the " time 
 element " of the problem ; but I venture to think he was 
 right in his surmise. 1 There is a growing body of opinion 
 in support of this view, as the names of Cunningham, 
 MacBride, Dendy, and Bourne seem to bear witness. We 
 must certainly take into account these hormonic regulators 
 of metabolism, and if we accept the view that hyper- 
 thyroidism is the direct cause of the phenomena seen in 
 
 1 See Chapter VII., Heredity and Environment.
 
 REPAIR IN EVOLUTION 91 
 
 Graves' Disease, just as hyper- or hypo-pituitarism causes 
 giantism or infantilism in children, while a later overgrowth 
 of the gland causes acromegaly, I see no difficulty in accept- 
 ing the hypothesis that growth is determined, i.e. stimulated 
 or finally inhibited, by non-living catalysts or secretions 
 not necessarily confined to the endocrine organs. In this 
 way a bridge may perhaps be built between the orthodox 
 Weismannian and the Lamarckian. Growth and character 
 are caused by determinants ; but these are not parts of the 
 cytoplasm itself, they are the machinery by and through 
 which living matter acts. The organism is not built 
 up by special protoplasm, or by entelechies, or by any 
 mysterious elan creatif. It arises from the definite influence 
 of definite catalysts originating, in an orderly sequence, 
 as the organs become differentiated, while the individual 
 is as a whole exposed in an infinite progression to the 
 internal and external stimuli of a like but slowly changing 
 environment to which it reacts. The factors which did 
 the work are working now. 
 
 To recapitulate the tentative conclusions arrived at, 
 it may be suggested that : 
 
 1. Mechanical reaction to stress is a general law of all 
 tissues. 
 
 2. Morbid conditions in many cases give rise to repair 
 which becomes physiological. 
 
 3. Such repairs lead to new functions, new stresses, 
 further morbid states, and further repair. 
 
 4. These factors are some of the main causes of specific 
 and generic differences. 
 
 5. In all probability transmission of changes caused 
 in the way indicated takes place by a morphogenetic reply 
 in utero to increased functional stresses. 
 
 6. As it is a narrow view to assume that pathology
 
 92 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 in all cases tends to death, the study of pathology and 
 general physiology should be part of the preparation of 
 the biologist. 
 
 REFERENCES. 
 
 BAYLISS, W. M. " Principles of General Physiology," 1918. 
 BLAND-SUTTON, Sir JOHN. (i) "Tumours," 1918 ; (2) "Evolu- 
 tion and Disease." 
 BRAMANN. " Descensus Testiculorum," His. Arch., 1884, 
 
 pp. 310-40. 
 HUNTER, JOHN. "Works" (ed. Owen), vol. iv., " Descent of 
 
 Testis," p. i. 
 
 KAMMERER. P. v. MacBride's paper, infra. 
 KEITH, ARTHUR. " Nature of Peritoneal Adhesions," Lancet, 
 
 London, 1914, p. 362; "Menders of the Maimed," 1919. 
 LEWIS, T. " Mechanism of the Heart Beat," 1911. 
 MACBRIDE, E. W. " Are Acquired Characters Inherited ? " 
 
 Trans. S.E. Union of Scientific Societies, 1917. 
 STARLING, E. H. (i) " Physiology " ; (2) " Law of the Heart," 
 
 1916. 
 
 SUTTON, H. G. " Lectures on Pathology." 
 WOLFF, JULIUS. " Law of Bone Transformation," Acad. Science, 
 
 Berlin, 1892.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 INHIBITION AND THE CARDIAC VAGUS J 
 
 THE history of science records the birth, life, and 
 death of many conceptions, which, although they 
 seemed to reconcile contradictions triumphantly, in the 
 end did but serve to show how hypotheses can rise to the 
 rank of theories, and yet finally be disposed of by some stray 
 fact. Just as some conqueror in his hour of victory falls 
 to a chance bullet, so they succumb at last. They may for 
 the time be " true " ; they serve, that is, as a temporary 
 shelter or clearing house for contradictory observations, 
 and thus produce the semblance of order. Deep within 
 them there may be even some hint of real explanation. 
 It was so with the ancient view of the arteries, to which the 
 very word bears witness. They were, indeed, air vessels 
 even if the observations leading to such a conclusion were 
 
 1 An abstract of this paper was printed in The British Medical Journal, 
 September 14, 1918, and since re-writing and developing it, I note that 
 R. M. M'Nair Wilson (" Meaning of Tachycardia," ibid., January 17, 
 1920) practically adopts Luciani's view, with which I was not acquainted, 
 that the vagus is " a nerve of diastole," and adds, " this nerve would 
 seem not to be inhibitor in the narrow sense, but rather to act by in- 
 creasing the filling time in response, no doubt, to stimulation from the 
 cortex." Although I do not wholly agree with this in all its implications, 
 yet as I have expressed doubts as to whether tachycardia is to be attri- 
 buted to disturbance of the pace-maker itself, it is of interest to me to 
 note that Wilson holds the view that it is due to a compensating accelera- 
 tion when the ventricular systole cannot get rid of the diastolic intake. 
 This, I imagine, is also the opinion of T. Lewis, who states that tachycardia 
 does not originate in the pace-maker. 
 
 93
 
 94 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 incomplete. So, too, with Phlogiston, which was both false 
 and true, and passed away as explanation when the actual 
 nature of combustion was discovered. Many such con- 
 ceptions must exist now, and possibly among them may be 
 reckoned some orthodox conceptions of physiology. 
 
 It is a mark of false but useful theory that in the end 
 it raises more questions than it disposes of. In its 
 explanation other hypotheses are built up which contradict 
 each other, while none can be found to reconcile them. But 
 if the original conception is held obstinately, even further 
 observations are tortured into supporting it. In such 
 cases free speculation and criticism may play a useful part. 
 
 If there is any physiological subject in which speculation 
 of all kinds is allowable on such grounds it is, perhaps, 
 Inhibition. There are facts of observation in abundance, as 
 any text-book of physiology proves, while the hypotheses, 
 sometimes misnamed theories, which seek to explain 
 them are both difficult and contradictory. It seemed to 
 me, when considering the subject, that the function of 
 the cardiac vagus, in which, according to accepted views, 
 inhibition means not only cessation of action in some 
 muscles, but the actual weakening of the whole heart, 
 might form a key, if not to unlock the mysteries of inhibition, 
 at the least to show some possible flaws in accepted opinion. 
 It appeared likely that not only had results obtained 
 in the laboratory, often of a pathological or traumatic 
 origin, not been compared with normal physiological action, 
 but that few inquirers had sought for analogies in other 
 organisms by which inhibition and its action could be 
 understood. It certainly appeared as if some clue were 
 needed to the problem, so far without real explanation, as 
 to the manner in which the vagus centre could "put the 
 heart out of action," and yet increase the action of the
 
 INHIBITION AND CARDIAC VAGUS 95 
 
 intestine. In saying so it has not been forgotten that 
 inhibition is admitted by most to be no more than a 
 covering word for various observations. Such a covering 
 word, however, tends to obtain illegitimate sanctions by 
 continued use, and if it is asked to shelter not only mere 
 physiological stoppage of action, as when a muscle is thrown 
 out of gear, but also a pathological process in which the 
 subject may die of cardiac failure, a better one must 
 surely be sought. 
 
 In the first place, it may be asked whether inhibition, 
 in any case, is a safe word to employ, even if the facts 
 observed are found to support the general notion. Nothing 
 is clearer than that the use of a word, which is, as it were, 
 sanctified by special employment in other connections 
 than those of science, needs the closest examination. The 
 connotation of the term as commonly employed is purely 
 "psychological," that is to say, it is a "portmanteau" 
 word for the interruptions of functions by " forbiddance," 
 or obvious and useful shorthand for a complex of con- 
 ditioned reflexes which, on being excited, repress certain 
 actions by turning energy in other directions. For we 
 cannot suppose that an "inhibited " clergyman does not 
 in some way employ his energy on paths previously little 
 used or not used at all. Just as spoken words are sound 
 signals which excite reflex action, so the bishop's written 
 words of inhibition, when they stop a certain function, 
 set others in action, whether it be over emotional tracts 
 of indignation, surprise, or anger, or over carefully con- 
 sidered remonstrance worked out by " volition " over the 
 pyramidal tract in motor reactions which produce an answer 
 and demand investigation. Yet using the common verbal 
 shorthand, we say the clergyman has been "inhibited" by 
 the bishop, as if some direct influence, not to be analysed
 
 96 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 into historic ecclesiastical tradition and custom, has pro- 
 duced mere inability, and reduced the inhibited to temporary 
 paralysis. Taking the word into science has produced 
 similar results since some eminent physiologists have used 
 the very word "influence " of the supposed vagus action 
 on the heart. They would doubtless own that they, too, 
 employed the word as shorthand ; but if, as I think the 
 facts show, all sorts of inhibition, save those due to the 
 pathological conditions vaguely summed up as "shock," 
 are the result of substituted excitational actions, direct 
 or upon other paths, there is no more need to use the 
 word as opposed to excitation than there is to say that 
 work is inhibited by the sound of the dinner-bell. What 
 really happens in such a case is the conditioned reflex- 
 closing of some synapses of the brain, and the easy opening 
 of others leading to the reflex instinctive satisfactions of 
 food. 
 
 The answer to these questions seems to depend upon 
 the processes which take place in one muscle when its anta- 
 gonist is stimulated. There are probably few more difficult 
 subjects in physiology than that of contractile tissue ; but 
 to say that when a muscle goes out of action it is "in- 
 hibited," surely takes us no further, since it is only putting 
 into obscure words what we already know. It was the 
 belief that the action of the stimulated cardiac vagus was 
 excitatory of some really active process which led me to 
 inquire whether inhibition in the sense of weakening ever 
 occurred save in pathological cases, for, if it did not, it 
 seemed to follow inevitably that the relaxation of a muscle 
 was in some way a positive process in which there was some 
 substituted action, not a time of rest. For a muscle's time 
 of rest should be the refractory period. At first it seemed as 
 if the facts could be explained, if not by a process of
 
 INHIBITION AND CARDIAC VAGUS 97 
 
 " drainage," at least by the deduction that a muscle " went 
 out of action " owing to the fact that it sent no afferent, 
 and received no answering efferent messages. Yet as I 
 believed that there was a definitely active process shown 
 in the diastole on normal physiological stimulation, it at 
 last seemed certain that muscle-lengthening was not at all 
 an inhibitory but an exciting process. It did not seem 
 legitimate to say that lengthening took place " naturally," 
 even if the word was interpreted as implying local processes 
 of communicated strains, and cessation of strains, acting 
 directly as kinds of primitive reflexes. What then is the 
 action of muscle when lengthening ? As there are de- 
 formations of the muscle cells in contraction, why should 
 there not be active deformation in its opposite ? Such 
 deformations must depend on physico-chemical factors 
 such as surface tension and osmosis. If a muscle cell 
 alters its shape when stimulated to contract, we can 
 imagine its molecules ranged in a column of two, 
 " forming fours," and closing up. In the opposite 
 process the column of two molecules will become a 
 column of single ones. Thus relaxation becomes a 
 positive lengthening process of active deformation. If 
 there are no special muscles of diastole in the heart acted 
 on directly by the vagus as a motor nerve, some such 
 process must account for the active diastole. It was 
 a long time after some of these considerations occurred 
 to me that a real explanation of cardiac negative pressure 
 seemed possible. 
 
 We find it, however, stated authoritatively that 
 stimulation of the cardiac vagus is followed, not by the 
 mere throwing out of action of another muscle, but by 
 a slowing of the rate, a diminution of the energy, and a 
 slackening in the rate of conduction of the Bundle of His and 
 7
 
 98 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 of the whole heart. The vagus fibres are thus conceived 
 as actually depressant fibres, while the accelerator (or aug- 
 mentor) acts, it is said, in exactly the opposite way. Since 
 such views are founded on observations first made by the 
 Webers, which cannot be placed in the category of ordinary 
 reflex inhibition with substituted action, some further 
 examination of the deductions drawn may surely be 
 made with a view of determining whether the cardiac 
 vagus really plays the part assigned to it, and whether 
 the view stated above can throw light not only upon 
 ordinary " inhibition," but on the real nature of the cardiac 
 diastole. 
 
 Although there is great reluctance on the part of physio- 
 logists to acknowledge that experiments, however great 
 their value, are often misleading, it is just as true to say so 
 as to say that what happens in vitro is not always repeated 
 in vivo. If it were, practical medicine would be less 
 uncertain than it is. But just as the living organism with 
 its unmeasured complexities thwarts and disappoints both 
 physician and pharmacologist, so the animal experimented 
 on, in conditions which are pathological and unnatural from 
 the very beginning, cannot always show, and cannot be 
 expected to show, the reactions due to natural stimuli when 
 subjected, probably under conditions of trauma, to stimuli 
 with which evolution has not made it acquainted. To say 
 so much is not to urge any vital objection to experiment, 
 but merely to caution those who, when they obtain interest- 
 ing results, believe they are physiological. If in general a 
 negative effect obtained by nerve stimulation requires 
 explanation, how much more is needed to make it credible 
 that evolution has contrived, by the mechanism of the 
 cardiac vagus, a means not only of weakening the organism, 
 but of actually bringing about its death ?
 
 99 
 
 When any man dies of sudden heart failure without 
 cardiac disease or degeneration it is commonly attributed 
 to "shock." Whatever "shock" may be, and something 
 relevant to the subject may be urged later, it is usually 
 brought about by violent stimulation of an unusual kind, 
 such as severe trauma with its concomitant results. It is 
 obvious that the heart, especially in delicately balanced 
 organisms, is subject to continual fluctuations in its rate 
 and energy. In it any excitatory, or depressant, stimuli 
 bring about reflex cardiac results, in which, doubtless, the 
 vagus is often implicated. In a minor degree they, too, 
 may often be said to suffer from shock, for in that con- 
 dition the state of the circulation is a major factor. If 
 they are depressed there is weakening and slowing of the 
 heart, a possible accumulation of blood in the abdominal 
 veins, or even some loss of the fluid constituents of the blood 
 by failure of osmotic balance, such as seen in undoubted 
 traumatic shock (Bayliss), temporary anaemia of the brain, 
 collapse, and possibly loss of consciousness. Such results, 
 although they may upon occasion save the life of those 
 who suffer from them, are undoubtedly dangerous, and in 
 that sense pathological. It seems possible, then, that the 
 equivalent or allied phenomena seen in animals, when the 
 cut vagus is stimulated artificially, may be of a similar 
 kind, and that any physiological deductions as to the 
 action of the cardiac vagus are, to say the least, some- 
 what hasty. 
 
 Since shock has been of late the subject of much re- 
 search, and of especially valuable practical work by 
 Bayliss, something at least is known of its nature. Judg- 
 ing, however, from recent notices of it in medical journals, 
 it is to be observed that the main symptoms of severe, or 
 possibly lethal, shock only are dilated upon. The influence
 
 100 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 of damaged muscle products, and the loss of blood fluid 
 through the walls of the veins and arteries, are certainly, 
 as it seems, the principal phenomena of the drama ; but 
 since all physiological phenomena can only be conceived 
 as verging gradually into pathological forms, and as we 
 cannot understand pathology, except as divergence from 
 useful function or structure, it inevitably follows that 
 stimulation itself can be so accentuated that it becomes, 
 firstly, excessive, secondly, abnormal, and at last crosses 
 the vague border-line and becomes pathological. So, from 
 the psychological, or complex cerebral point of view, we 
 see the varying results of mild and severe surprise, mere 
 fright, or excessive terror exciting more and more violent 
 motor reactions or producing collapse, paralysis of all 
 effort, total unconsciousness, or even death. There is 
 therefore no need whatever to confine the use of the word 
 shock to extreme phenomena. Anything which interrupts 
 normal function, whether by vaso-motor means, by the 
 excitation of some glands, or by producing synaptic 
 block, or its exact opposite, may be ranked under its 
 heading. 
 
 In accordance with what is laid down elsewhere, some- 
 thing more may be learnt of these phenomena if any 
 mechanical, biological, or social analogies can be discovered. 
 Incidentally such an inquiry should throw some light, 
 however dim, upon inhibition itself. When a social 
 " shock," such as a great national calamity, is experienced, 
 what are the phenomena observed ? The outstanding fact 
 is that every one's attention is diverted from his task, 
 and that for a time, longer or shorter according to circum- 
 stances, work ceases, or is greatly slackened. In certain 
 factories, for instance, in which the energy used is 
 supplied by machinery, the engineer might even stop it
 
 INHIBITION AND CARDIAC VAGUS 101 
 
 altogether. It may be remarked, by the way, that in 
 such a case energy would be stored in the boilers if the fires 
 were not drawn or neglected. Such a storage of energy 
 may be seen during temporary slowing of a physiological 
 process, such as at first follows on vagal stimulation of the 
 intestine. If the social shock is not too great, some- 
 thing of the same result follows. If the work in hand is 
 very necessary, it is probably returned to with greater 
 vigour after the pause. Or it is diverted to functions 
 still more necessary in the new circumstances. But when 
 such a shock is very great, it is not followed by physio- 
 logical renewed action, nor is it diverted. Action is entirely 
 "inhibited," and energy is wasted. How is that energy 
 wasted ? Energy must do work. What then is done ? 
 It was said by a great physician that unity was health, and 
 separation disease. He spoke truly, for with separation 
 in any organism there is waste of energy. Nothing gets 
 done. In a social organism there follows on great shock a 
 degree of disintegration, with concomitant anger, argument, 
 recrimination, so that energy is wasted in mere social heat 
 instead of used in combined directed labour. Shock, then, 
 is plainly a disruptive phenomenon, whether seen in a 
 social or animal unit. In the animal no organ works well 
 and none works with another. Secretions, hormones, cata- 
 lysts, and the whole machinery of life are altered. The 
 nervous system ceases to function rightly ; tone, nervous 
 or muscular, is lowered, the blood accumulates in the 
 splanchic area, the veins lose their serum. Instead of real 
 symbiosis there is a dead indifference if the psychological 
 phrase may be allowed : the fundamental hostility at the 
 bottom of symbiosis may cease its powerful action. It is 
 almost as if in a wrecked ship all hands broke into the 
 spirit room, for in the shocked organism excretion is inter-
 
 102 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 fered with, and there is no cell unpoisoned, unintoxicated. 
 Such effects of wasted, or undirected, energy may be seen in 
 special cases to which the word shock cannot be employed. 
 In the failing heart auricular fibrillation is the untimed 
 contractions of disorganized fibres. It is the same with 
 cardiac flutter. In a racing boat , when exhaustion overtakes 
 the crew, they do not pull together. Unable any longer to 
 receive the rhythmic stimulus of stroke, each man's 
 reaction time or personal equation masters him. And 
 each man's differs. The boat slows and, perhaps, finally 
 stops. " The crew went to pieces." It is so with utter 
 exhaustion. It is so in shock. And undoubtedly the 
 liability to such complete disruption increases as the 
 organism becomes higher, and the degree of interdepen- 
 dence of the organs increases. In the most developed 
 nervous types the heart seems the first organ to feel shock 
 of any kind. Something or another has " gone to pieces " ; 
 some function has been interrupted, whether by a disin- 
 tegrative process in cells leading to an interruption of revers- 
 ible reactions of colloids, or by some other failure. The 
 processes by which energy is stored and released in 
 muscle are as obscure as they are remarkable, and it is 
 possible that cardiac shock may be found at last to be the 
 result of an abnormal colloidal process depending upon an 
 excessive " trigger action " of the cardiac vagus. 
 
 For many reasons it seems impossible to accept un- 
 reservedly the physiological doctrine that stimulation of a 
 nerve is but "trigger action" to the muscle it sets going, 
 and that no more energy passes over from the end-plate 
 than an amount so small as not to be measurable. If some 
 of the conclusions as to nervous action were not called 
 in question by other accepted, or partially accepted, views, 
 it might seem hazardous to make such an assertion.
 
 INHIBITION AND CARDIAC VAGUS 103 
 
 But assuredly Wrightson's Theory of Hearing, which has 
 able advocates, throws doubt on many accepted opinions. 
 Moreover, those who have had the doubtful advantage of 
 receiving a severe and unexpected electric shock with a 
 powerful muscular reaction which, as it seems, might in 
 some cases tear away a ligament or even snap a bone, will 
 have suspicions of the " trigger " doctrine. If the function 
 of the vagus is not to produce some kind of excitation, the 
 phrase " trigger action " does not apply. " Trigger action " 
 in a gun is a measurable amount of energy, and so is the 
 energy in the cartridge. And in ordinary cases, where 
 the gun and the cartridge are what we may call " physio- 
 logical," that is, in such a state that the normal hammer 
 fall produces the normal explosion, an abnormally powerful 
 hammer impact will produce no more powder energy than a 
 merely adequate one. Yet if a powerful nerve excitation 
 occurs, there is more than a normal explosion of muscle 
 energy. In this case, if the nerve acts as a whole, more 
 energy does " go over," for, if in ordinary conditions 
 only a few fibres are affected, with the stronger stimulation 
 all may be called into play. In either case the facts suggest 
 that more energetic stimulation does cause greater, or even 
 disastrous effects, showing that " trigger action " is not a 
 sound analogy. It is therefore easy to understand how it 
 is that abnormal vagal stimulation results in " shock " 
 or disintegrating action. There seem more analogies 
 between electric and nervous phenomena than the usual 
 nerve theories allow. For if in electric " flex," composed 
 of a large number of very fine wires, some of these fibres 
 are cut, the lamp does not light, whereas, if more volts are 
 applied to the unaltered wire, "shock" results, and the 
 incandescent filaments fuse. It should be remembered 
 that action resulting in shock is not an entity, totus, teres
 
 104 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 atque rotundus, it is a function of the two variables stimulus, 
 and the condition of the stimulated organism. It may be 
 little or more and more. The further it is considered the 
 more justifiable it appears to regard it as a stimulus pro- 
 ducing pathological effects, and such views are in keeping 
 with the notion that the vagus normally is not " depressor," 
 but, being a most delicate adjustment agent, can easily 
 become such. We can certainly imagine that its action is 
 depressing if all the vagus fibres are excited at once, which 
 probably never happens in physiological conditions. So 
 very rarely can all the fibres of the biceps be excited 
 together. There are nearly a thousand fibres in its trunk. 
 If the violent tonic spasm, produced by strong electric 
 stimulation, excites them all together the phenomenon is 
 explicable. Otherwise we must assume, as said above, 
 what no physiologist seems to believe, that energy does 
 really pass over from the end-plate into the muscle itself. 
 
 If then shock be a complex of such phenomena, and 
 if it is hard to conceive that evolution has made physio- 
 logical stimulation of the vagus a means of destruction, 
 it necessarily follows that its experimental stimulation, 
 leading to weakening and failure of the heart, is essentially 
 pathological, and that from what occurs no legitimate 
 physiological deductions can be drawn. The Webers 
 discovered an interesting fact ; but all they noted 
 must be classed as pathological or traumatic. Doubt is 
 thus thrown upon the view that the vagus can weaken a 
 muscle in one place and stimulate it in another. Nothing 
 will co-ordinate the facts but some proof, or suggestion 
 of proof, that the vagus exerts both on heart muscle and 
 smooth muscle an " influence " which helps both to 
 function better. 
 
 What then is the real function of the cardiac vagus ?
 
 INHIBITION AND CARDIAC VAGUS 105 
 
 When it is considered that every act of breathing and every 
 change of posture send vagus messages to the heart, it 
 seems obvious that the nerve fibres are adapted to control 
 the heart's action, and enable it to do its work. Such 
 messages are truly physiological, and cannot be measured 
 in electrical language. But though they cannot be so 
 measured, the changes induced are of definite advantage 
 to the organism, and indicate one of the most delicate 
 adaptations to gravity, or slight efforts, to be found in the 
 mammalian body. Vagal or youthful irregularity of the 
 heart is doubtless of a similar kind. In this kind of cardiac 
 arrhythmia, still frequently mistaken by some medical 
 men for serious disease, the heart slows after every inspira- 
 tion, while, if the patient holds his breath, the irregularity 
 tends to disappear. Though it is now known, owing to the 
 work of Mackenzie, that it has no pathological significance 
 whatsoever, it certainly has a physiological signification 
 as showing to what immeasurably small stimuli the normal 
 heart can and does respond. It may eventually be found 
 that, though the slowing occurs during expiration, the 
 vagal stimulation is experienced during inspiration, when 
 the lungs expand. In a pathological case, the mere act of 
 swallowing stimulates the vagus, and produces heart-block 
 a few seconds later. The more these facts are considered 
 the less likely does it seem that a tied-up animal, with a cut 
 vagus electrically stimulated, can be held to show pheno- 
 mena on a cardiogram which are remotely relevant to 
 normal vagal action. Moreover, even when pressure over 
 the vagus is applied at the neck and slowing results, there 
 is no evidence to prove that the result is directly due to 
 the pressure, since it is, on these general lines, far more 
 likely to be due to the partial interruption of the circulation, 
 and a vagal attempt at vaso-motor readjustment.
 
 106 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 From such considerations it follows that an inquiry 
 must be made as to how the vagus acts on the heart physio- 
 logically, and what its real functions are. Such a question 
 leads to a fresh study of the heart's mechanism, and the rdle 
 played by the augmentor as well as the vagus. Even if 
 the notion that the vagus normally weakens the heart be 
 put aside as contradicting the whole course of evolution, 
 and if the facts can be otherwise explained when it does 
 happen to have that effect, it may, at least, be admitted 
 that it certainly slows the heart on stimulation, just as 
 the augmentor or accelerator fibres quicken it. But 
 reasonable slowness of action by no means implies weaken- 
 ing or fatigue. The heart can be slowed in many ways, 
 by the toxins of fatigue or disease, by high blood-pressure, 
 by a depletion of the higher centres owing to vaso-motor 
 action (Mackenzie) ; but if it is slowed physiologically, it 
 must be for advantageous action, and what is seen in ex- 
 periment is, at least, partially irrelevant, even if the whole 
 of the phenomena, when understood, can be linked together. 
 Following the method hitherto adopted, we may seek for 
 illustrations of slowing in something that resembles an 
 organism, and try to discover why it happens, and what it 
 effects. Let such an organism or individual be a University 
 eight. In a well-trained crew the endeavour of the trainer 
 has been to get a long, slow, " well-pulled-through " action ; 
 but when the crew become tired they are apt to accelerate 
 the stroke, and make it short and " snatchy." It is found 
 that more power is obtained by the long and slow stroke, 
 and when the coxswain or the stroke oar think it time to 
 quicken, both are well aware the reserve power of the crew 
 is being drawn upon. When the slower rate is maintained, 
 " inhibition " is the inhibition of the accelerator, not 
 inhibition of the strength of the crew. By inhibiting
 
 INHIBITION AND CARDIAC VAGUS 107 
 
 rapidity and the waste of unregulated energy, power is 
 conserved. Quite legitimately we may regard stroke as 
 the pace-maker, and cox as central control. If in the heart 
 we regard " inhibition " by the vagus as inhibition of 
 the accelerators themselves, we obtain a physiological view 
 of the whole cardiac drama, which, in fact, puts it into 
 line with the muscular phenomena of reciprocal innerva- 
 tion. I am aware that physiologists, dominated by what 
 they observe in the laboratory, maintain that such an 
 illustration does not illustrate, as they say the heart's force 
 is really weakened. But the objections to this are many 
 more than those already mentioned. All the facts of 
 mechanics and physics are against it. When an engine is 
 stopped or slowed, it is not weakened. On the contrary, 
 it is strengthened, i.e. energy accumulates, and the boiler 
 pressure rises. Questions of energetics also arise, for if, 
 as physiologists say, the nerve only pulls the trigger, 
 what action occurs in the heart muscle as it slows ? Does 
 it waste its energy under normal stimulation, postural, 
 inspiratory, or expiratory ? And if its energy is wasted, 
 what becomes of it, and how does its free energy become 
 bound energy ? It seems, having got so far, that no effort 
 has been made to ascertain whether the real function of 
 the vagus, as regards the brain itself, is not to control the 
 accelerator centre, and the action of the accelerator centre 
 to modify vagus action. Such an opinion might, I think, 
 correlate and explain many of the observed phenomena, 
 and it would certainly bring them into line with those seen 
 in engines of all kinds, while it does not contradict direct 
 cardiac action. 
 
 It still remains, even if these views are allowed to have 
 any force, to ask in what way the vagus actually influences 
 the heart ? If it slows it, not to weaken it, but to allow it
 
 108 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 time to recuperate and gather energy, just as the vagus 
 when acting on an intestine has at first a slowing, " in- 
 hibitory " effect upon it, on what in the heart does the 
 vagus act ? Such a question leads to the consideration of 
 the diastolic mechanism, which seems so obscure that no 
 information whatever is to be obtained on the subject. 
 After consulting all books within my reach, the utmost I 
 have gathered is that the diastole is "an elastic rebound," 
 in some way connected with the columnce carnece. On 
 applying personally to certain authorities I was told it was 
 " a vital process." But so is the whole of life. The answer 
 answered nothing. We know that there is negative pres- 
 sure in the heart during diastole, so the old theory of the 
 passive diastole cannot stand. There are few, if any, 
 elastic connective-tissue fibres in the ventricle, whatever 
 there may be in the septum or the base. Is then the 
 diastole after all a muscular process in the sense that 
 certain layers contract ? One of our greatest authorities 
 tells me that there are no reasons for supposing that this is 
 so. The whole of the muscle layers seem adapted only for 
 the systole. It is true that in the systolic contraction there 
 appear to be torsion strains. If we adopt the view that 
 skeletal muscles are all systems, and that a single muscle 
 cannot exist, it is perhaps conceivable that certain layers of 
 cardiac muscle are stretched during the systolic torsion 
 contraction, and that the diastolic rebound is thus muscular. 
 Yet if the view is accepted that the mere lengthening of a 
 muscle is a positive and active process, and a change in 
 molecular order, which in some cases can do work, this 
 somewhat unlikely hypothesis can be dispensed with. We 
 have merely to inquire why in ordinary cases a lengthened 
 muscle is said to be relaxed, and why the positive cardiac 
 diastole, capable of producing a negative pressure, which
 
 INHIBITION AND CARDIAC VAGUS 109 
 
 according to Stefani is increased by vagal excitations, 
 must obviously in some sense be unrelaxed. Because an 
 inactive voluntary muscle appears soft it by no means 
 follows that the lengthened cells are themselves so. They 
 have merely ceased to pull on their origin and insertion. 
 One fibre is not attached to another, and in contraction 
 what we observe is the general tensile strain. But in the 
 heart this condition of loose muscle fibre does not exist. 
 According to Schafer cardiac fibres differ greatly from 
 voluntary fibres : " their striations are less distinct ; they 
 have no sarcolemma ; they branch and unite with neigh- 
 bouring fibres, and their nuclei lie in the centre of the 
 fibres." Of these differences, and here I follow a brilliant 
 suggestion of Keith's, the really important one is that 
 " they branch and unite with neighbouring fibres." If the 
 diastolic muscle action really does work, the fibres cannot 
 slacken and bend as in voluntary muscle. They form an 
 actual network, an interdigitated or branched growth- 
 mechanism, and must move together. Excitation is not 
 transmitted from fibre to fibre in skeletal muscle, but it 
 does so pass in cardiac as in smooth muscle, and all the 
 cells are excited in waves. It is obvious that these millions 
 of short columnar cells, each with its restraining connections, 
 have to act as a body, cell with cell, fibre with fibre, and 
 layer with layer, since the layers are so much part of each 
 other that anatomists differ as to their number. In such a 
 formation we have a most remarkable and unique engine, 
 very different indeed from the fibres of voluntary muscle 
 isolated in their sarcolemma, and a rough illustration of 
 its mechanism may be afforded by comparing it with what 
 we see in the instrument known as a " lazy tongs," in which 
 interdependent, interbranched, and hinged lozenges are 
 shortened or lengthened at the user's will, while in either
 
 110 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 state the whole tool remains more or less rigid. On 
 receiving stimulation in a normal condition of the myo- 
 cardium it is assuredly a case of " all or nothing," for a fibre 
 cannot really move by itself, although in the pathological 
 state of fibrillation there are useless unco-ordinated 
 twitches. Even if I were qualified to enter into the whole 
 question of muscular action, and most assuredly I am not, to 
 do so would be unnecessary in this question of the diastole. 
 It is sufficient to note that there appears a fairly general 
 consensus of opinion that contraction is due to surface 
 action, and that, though oxygen is needed for the energy 
 which restores potential, combustion takes no part in the 
 actual work done. We are here, however, not concerned 
 with contraction, but with elongation, and, though it is diffi- 
 cult to understand in what way osmosis plays a part, it is 
 known that in muscle action there is movement of water 
 (Bayliss), and that fatigued muscle readily absorbs it. It 
 may, perhaps, be said that during contraction the water is 
 expelled into " lakes " in the interstices of the network 
 of cells, that during the refractory period the oxidative 
 processes which restore lactic acid take place, and that 
 elongation is osmotic expansion. Thus contraction has an 
 outflow and elongation an inflow, which, it may be suggested, 
 puts the whole process on a par with vaso-constrictor 
 and vaso-dilator phenomena. If this is so it seems 
 perfectly legitimate to regard the muscle cells as complex 
 sets of reversible hydraulic presses, and to infer that, 
 though apparently less powerful than contraction, length- 
 ening of muscle is a process exactly analogous to vaso- 
 dilatation. That this process may be increased by normal 
 stimulation of the vagus centre can hardly be doubted, 
 and when it is said that the vaso-dilator centre is not yet 
 discovered, though known to exist since vaso-dilator
 
 INHIBITION AND CARDIAC VAGUS 111 
 
 nerves leave the cranial system, it seems as if the actual 
 facts had been obscured by hasty theories of inhibition, 
 and that the portion of the bulb where the vagus arises is 
 the actual centre which is still looked for. We might, then, 
 assume that vagus action is the same as positive vaso- 
 dilatation, however much the phenomena are obscured in the 
 intestine or elsewhere by subsidiary controlling mechanisms, 
 such as are probably found in Auerbach's plexus, and 
 infer that the whole action of the heart is but specialized 
 vaso-constriction and dilatation by an ancestral motor 
 nerve and its later subordinate ganglia. It might even 
 be said that the Keith-Flack node is the Auerbach plexus 
 of the heart. If this is so, vaso-dilatation is everywhere 
 caused by a positive elongation of a muscular ring, which 
 pushes outwards while held in position by neighbouring 
 tissues ; the cell-lengthening being caused by osmosis. 
 When we deal, not with such small muscular systems as an 
 intestinal or arterial coat, but with a larger connected 
 mass of systems such as cardiac muscle, it is not more 
 difficult, or so it seems to me, to understand how a negative 
 pressure comes about in the ventricle than in a pump. In 
 fact, the heart in more senses than one is a double pump, for 
 it not only expels blood but draws it in. On further experi- 
 ment it may be found that even the auricles have a feeble 
 aspiratory power. I find myself totally unable to credit 
 any other view since the heart, when removed from an 
 animal and kept in a nutrient Ringer's solution, con- 
 tinues to expand and contract actively. Very many 
 years ago I was much impressed by observing the heart of 
 a pelagic shark, of the genus Carcharias, beating in the 
 open air of a hot tropical day. I held it in my hand, and 
 found some pressure needed to keep it closed. On opening 
 my fingers it followed them, and went on beating. I put
 
 112 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 it down upon the deck, and placed a coin upon it. The 
 heart continually raised and lowered the piece of money. 
 When it was raised the heart was widely expanded and 
 semi-transparent. As the organ contracted to a mere 
 knot it lost its transparency. But the point is that the 
 detached heart, even in hot, dry air, for very many minutes 
 actually did work. I have been assured that I may have 
 mistaken the systole for the diastole. I do not see how this 
 can be. Ignorant as I was of physiology, I could still 
 observe the time of its greatest expansion when it raised 
 the weight put upon it. In spite of our ignorance of the 
 exact mechanism it seems impossible not to think that there 
 are direct diastolic agents, and that it is they which are 
 governed and regulated by the vagus. It should come 
 into play, especially when the heart is irritable and shows 
 a tendency to rely upon acceleration rather than the 
 "long pulled- through stroke" permitted by an adequate 
 diastolic action. Such action would tend to keep the blood- 
 pressure normal, and increase the coronary blood-supply. 
 It thus becomes easy to understand an efferent cranial 
 nerve acting not as a simple motor nerve, but as part of the 
 autonomic sympathetic system, and it puts vagal cardiac 
 action into line with its positive effects on intestinal move- 
 ments. It is not too much to say that the physiological 
 stimulus affecting the vagus probably depends on an 
 increased irritability in the medulla, consequent on a 
 lessened blood-supply, which reflexly exerts its influence on 
 the vagal centre. The whole drama of the heart, indepen- 
 dently of its automatic action, thus depends for stress and 
 change on the regulating effects of vagus and accelerator. 
 The accelerator, indeed, seems a better term than Gaskell's 
 " augmentor," for its chief role appears to be that of over- 
 coming the inertia of the " pace-maker," and urging the
 
 INHIBITION AND CARDIAC VAGUS 113 
 
 heart to increased rapidity of action until the vagus once 
 more controls it. So the accelerator replies to a rapid 
 stress, the vagus to a continued one. Tachycardia as a 
 morbid condition is probably not always due to abnormal 
 alterations in the ' ' pace-maker. ' ' When the organism grows 
 weak, and the blood-pressure falls, the cerebral arteries 
 and coronary system can only be kept going by increased 
 rapidity, which makes up for the small volume of blood 
 sent into the aorta at each ventricular contraction. Every 
 one who has observed tired and worried workers, forced to 
 continue by urgent stimuli, has seen them go through such 
 stages. A man who works under pressure with a shovel 
 increases his rapidity and decreases his load. Seamen 
 tend under similar circumstances to take short ineffective 
 pulls on the gear at which they are hauling, and are apt 
 to do it in silence without the " pace-maker " of a rhythmic 
 song. I may be exposing myself to the ridicule of the 
 unobservant if I liken to vagus action the mate's voice 
 urging them to use their strength more rhythmically and 
 conservatively. But every worker who has toiled under 
 stress will be able to recall analogies in his own experience 
 which strengthen such an illustration. 
 
 It appears, then, as if the vagus and accelerator fibres 
 had no function of very great importance in health, rest, and 
 easy normal conditions, although without doubt they make 
 minor corrections in the cardiac mechanism at all times. 
 The necessity of explaining " inhibition " in the heart thus 
 seems only to exist in the laboratory, in the casualty 
 ward, or on the operating table. Then the conditions are 
 pathological ; the cases are cases of "shock," if shock is 
 disruption of united organic action with concomitant effects 
 upon the organs by which stability is assured. Such an 
 explanation seems in accord with what is known of the
 
 114 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 vaso-motor system as it responds reflexly to the needs of 
 the somatic cells, or to emotions conditioned by adrenalin 
 and other glandular products. But the chief point is that 
 there is no real contradiction in such a view between the 
 cardiac and intestinal vagus action. Both tend to increase 
 the working power of the organ they control. Moreover, 
 if these arguments have any weight, such is assuredly 
 increased by the fact that the phenomena accompanying 
 the therapeutic action of digitalis no longer contradict vagus 
 action, but show that the drug actually assists it to work 
 when normal control breaks down and the degenerate 
 heart is under the influence of the accelerators, or a flurried 
 irregular stimulus of the pace-maker, with concomitant 
 irregular muscle fibre discharges, such as are seen in 
 auricular fibrillation. It is true that pharmacologists assert 
 that the action of digitalis differs from vagus influence. 
 This is only natural since they are apt to bolt their physio- 
 logy whole, as it is given them by specialists in that 
 science. So indeed the physiologist himself, with regard to 
 drug action, leans with too much faith on the pharmacologist. 
 As was once remarked to me by an eminent professor, 
 there is scarcely a drug known to medicine which would 
 not take a lifetime to study properly. Certainly clinicians 
 would agree. Cushny says that the inhibitory action of the 
 vagus tends to render tone less complete, and to produce 
 weaker contractions than digitalis. This is in accordance 
 with orthodox opinion. But the evidence is not convincing. 
 What is of weight is the result of the experiments with this 
 particular cardiac drug. Even if ancient accepted experi- 
 ments, drawn from the text-books or the practice of the 
 physiological laboratories, are repeated, they are of no 
 more importance than the original ones founded, as I have 
 endeavoured to show, on unphysiological lines. To repeat,
 
 INHIBITION AND CARDIAC VAGUS 115 
 
 and keep on repeating, that a normal stimulus can have a 
 direct weakening effect does not convince those desirous 
 of examining the problem afresh. It may be recalled, 
 perhaps, not without advantage, that many single experi- 
 ments, or even dicta of authoritative ancient physicians, 
 are as duly repeated from one text-book to another as 
 wrong definitions in some big dictionary are copied in its 
 successors. In any case the physiologists and pharma- 
 cologists speak not as physicians, most of whom, I imagine, 
 are under the impression that digitalis in therapeutic doses 
 aids vagus action, slows the pulse, obtains a better diastole 
 directly, and allows the heart pause sufficient time to gather 
 up its energy and increase its general tone and its hasmic 
 output with relief to all the symptoms which called for its 
 assistance. When the heart has been thus helped the 
 accelerator is no longer irritated into increasing the heart- 
 rate, the pace-maker is restored to its normal action, 
 and once more dominates the irregular discharges of the 
 degenerate myocardium. To say, as the students of drugs 
 say, that the symptoms in the second, or poisonous, stage 
 of digitalis are like vagus action, and that cardiac work is 
 therefore less well done, is to mix true observations with 
 false. At the least it seems to imply that digitalis then 
 acts through and on the vagus nerve, whereas its thera- 
 peutic action suggests that what it does is to increase the 
 working capacity of the cardiac muscle by modifying its 
 irritability and allowing it time to recuperate, thereby 
 permitting normal vagus action to continue. It thus 
 assists the complex reversible reactions which enable 
 muscle to work at all. If larger doses stop action directly, 
 or prevent the muscle cells from being supplied with 
 necessary proteins, or with fuel, it is in such cases that the 
 word " inhibition " seems truly applicable, for poisonous
 
 116 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 doses of digitalis no doubt slow or stop recuperative 
 cardiac processes as well as many others. 
 
 In such conceptions there is no mystery, and no neces- 
 sity for the hypothesis that the vagus, acting as a trigger, 
 releases some particular compound which weakens the 
 heart. If in 1906 Shenington used the expression "in- 
 hibition, whatever that essentially may be," it is far more 
 likely that its nature will be discovered by resort to what 
 we know already, than to such unevolutionary notions of 
 "weakening." It seems that H. O. Thomas, who was not 
 only interested in bone surgery, came to the conclusion 
 that "inhibition is the suspension of life, not the action of 
 special nerves." That he meant by the "suspension of 
 life " some reflexly caused cessation of action is literally 
 certain. He actually writes in 1883 : "In proof that 
 mechanical irritation of this nerve (vagus) induces a con- 
 dition of shock, we have the accepted fact that atropine 
 protects the nerve from the shock consequent on mechanical 
 disturbance. I have not yet met with any evidence which 
 proves the existence of any inhibiting nerve fibres in this or 
 any other nerve." In these views it seems, according to 
 Rushbrooke, that Thomas followed Joseph Lister, also of 
 Liverpool, who wrote on the subject in 1859. Although 
 most, if not all, modern physiologists are certain that 
 inhibition exists, and that it is centrally caused, it seems 
 that the doctrine cannot be looked on as established. If 
 physiology is to make secure its final " passage to physics," 
 which physiologists, who do not resort to vitalism, are 
 working for, some means must surely be found to reconcile 
 the contradictions in cardiac and intestinal vagal action. 
 Perhaps some of the dissatisfaction with current theory can 
 be obviated by means of a different terminology, in which 
 the "lessened action" of reciprocal innervation, that seen
 
 INHIBITION AND CARDIAC VAGUS 117 
 
 in the preliminary pauses of intestinal activity, and the 
 peculiar phenomena observed in the heart, are not classed 
 together under one word of very doubtful connotations. 
 
 It is, of course, stated, perhaps almost with violence, 
 that inhibition and inhibitory nerves exist, that the evi- 
 dence for them is overwhelming. Certainly the observa- 
 tions show that action ceases at times very suddenly. 
 Activity is cut short, and a muscle with contrary action 
 comes into play. Bell's " muscular sense " consisted, I 
 take it, not only in central messages, but in an infinite 
 series of reflexes. So with Duchenne's " articular sense," 
 the loss of which, in his opinion, gave rise to locomotor 
 ataxia. It is barely conceivable that the paths of all 
 such delicate reflexes are known. Since the nerve cells 
 are not so distantly related to muscle cells, which are 
 peculiarly conductive, it can be imagined that many 
 muscular reflexes occur even without nerves, while few 
 neurologists, I imagine, will be ready to declare that the 
 whole nervous anatomy of the body is now and for 
 ever mapped out. These fields should be explored before 
 resorting to a rough-and-ready statement of central " in- 
 hibition " in every case of suddenly arrested action. Such 
 arrests take place under conscious, if instinctively recog- 
 nized, stimuli ; but since the constant course of evolution is 
 devolution and " short-circuiting," following the laws of 
 energetics, the naturally simpler view should be taken. 
 If so, in every case of inhibition some short-circuiting reflex 
 should be looked for, if the mere cessation of afferent sensory 
 messages will not account for the phenomena. It seems 
 as if inhibition had become a physiological Mesopotamia a 
 very comforting word. Certainly mystery after mystery has 
 been crammed into it, and once established as " explana- 
 tion " the endeavour is to explain it, with what results the
 
 118 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 text-books show. In things "psychological " there are 
 few physiologists who have not welcomed Pavlov's " condi- 
 tioned reflexes." By their considered use mysterious and 
 misleading words, with a hundred different meanings, may 
 be avoided. " Consciousness " itself, that Pandora's box of 
 scientific, no less than metaphysical, disaster, at last gives 
 way, and discloses itself as reflex adaptational machinery. 
 It is time that the word inhibition should yield to the 
 same key, for positive reflexes, however conditioned and 
 complex, which should be capable of resolution into 
 physical reactions, obviously rule living action of all 
 kinds. Certainly in physiology we have not yet reached 
 ultimate postulates or axioms, and no hypothesis should 
 include definite contradictions, especially when we have 
 to say " whatever it essentially may be." 
 
 In looking for explanation the human " mind " searches 
 for rest : the brain seeks automatically for the shorter paths 
 of cerebral activity that we call generalizations. There is 
 something profoundly satisfying in such processes, and they 
 can certainly be ranged under the laws of energetics. The 
 brain has less work to do, and a complex series of opening 
 and closing synapses is freed from continual irritation. 
 The flood of " thought," or energy, has found a short direct 
 channel, while all other possible paths are cut out. They 
 are, in fact, "inhibited"; synapses close; energy does 
 not act that way. Such a view by no means implies an 
 acceptance of M'Dougall's " drainage " theory of inhibition, 
 although something can be said for it. All it means is that 
 there is substituted action. It is probably so in every case 
 of inhibition. On a previous page I sought for some homely 
 illustrations and analogies for cardiac vagal action. These 
 can also be found for the phenomena in which lessened 
 action takes place in other muscles than those of the heart.
 
 INHIBITION AND CARDIAC VAGUS 119 
 
 There are " organisms " of the social kind in continuous 
 activity, with no complete pause, not even such a pause 
 as that of the heart. Such an organism is a ship at sea. 
 When one watch comes on deck the other goes off. From 
 the time of leaving one port to reaching another this con- 
 tinues. There is no moment at which part of the crew is 
 not in " tone," ready for action, or in actual work. A ship 
 has been evolved ; it has grown up, it has its reactions, 
 which we call sea customs. Although the two " watches " 
 or parts of the crew are separate, and usually possessed of a 
 certain jealousy or " hostility " to each other, they are con- 
 nected by innumerable bonds of habit and custom. When 
 one goes on deck in fine weather the other is " inhibited." 
 Does such inhibition arise centrally ? Although it may do 
 so in some cases it is mostly a pure reflex phenomenon. 
 One activity replaces the other automatically. It seems 
 to me that such a case supplies more than a hint for what is 
 known as " reciprocal innervation." When two muscles 
 have been evolved together, fulfilling opposite functions, 
 it is impossible not to imagine definite relations and con- 
 nections between them. The very activity of one implies 
 the inactivity of the other. And the actions of decerebrate 
 animals prove it. That the central system in a ship ensures 
 denote direction of the whole ship we know, but in the lower 
 functions excitations and inhibitions proceed automatically, 
 and it is of physiological interest to note that overmuch 
 central interference with such functions produces symptoms 
 which rapidly tend to become pathological. It is well 
 understood at sea that " central " interference is only 
 justifiable in abnormal conditions. Thus so long as the 
 crew function normally no officer enters the fo'c'sle except 
 on stated occasions of inspection. If he did it would 
 be greatly resented. Perpetual unevolutionary stimuli
 
 120 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 produce mutinies at sea, revolutions and anarchy on 
 shore. 
 
 Another illustration of real " inhibition " will be familiar 
 to all physicians and surgeons. A nervous patient visits, 
 say, a urologist, and finds that his cystic reflexes are tem- 
 porarily paralysed. Their action is partly reflex, partly 
 " volitional," or under central control. The sphincter and 
 cystic muscles are antagonistic. The surgeon observes the 
 condition of the patient and, whether he knows it or not, 
 a little thought must make him aware that the patient's 
 whole field of reactive consciousness is occupied by a con- 
 viction of inability. To encourage him vocally would be 
 worse than useless, since the less the patient thinks the 
 better. So he turns his back, which is already a help, and 
 sets a tap running. Relieved from the reactions caused 
 by observation, the patient's volitional tracts are freed while 
 the running water sets up a series of conditioned reflexes 
 which relax the sphincter and permit the cystic muscles to 
 act. So between stimulus and inhibition there is a long 
 series of substituted actions. Such a conclusion is greatly 
 reinforced by the possible opposite effect of the surgeon's 
 action. If the patient knows the trick that is being played 
 upon him there may be increased inhibition, which means 
 that his energy is turned into directions which do not help, 
 but actually hinder, the operation desired. In every case 
 it will be found that substituted action takes place, and that 
 no inhibition is direct. 
 
 It will probably be said that such simple illustrations 
 have no real relevance to such an obscure subject as 
 inhibition. Whether this is true or not the fact remains 
 that this paper is only meant to be suggestively critical of 
 views which do nc seem on the face of them to be sound. 
 Students, even the acutest, brought up in the light, or
 
 INHIBITION AND CARDIAC VAGUS 121 
 
 shadow, of certain doctrines, are naturally apt to find on 
 every hand confirmation of the accepted. This is not so 
 only in theology. It is a common human weakness. The 
 justification of criticism lies in the acknowledged con- 
 fusion of the subject, due, almost certainly, to inadequate 
 definitions and the confounding of several subjects under 
 a heading of the very dimmest connotation. It seems that 
 we cannot use the word rightfully even as a temporary 
 " explanation " of vagal action, although we may employ 
 it properly in the interruption of conditioned reflexes where 
 we get cases of substituted action which are as clearly 
 seen on examination as the surprising physical results 
 of apomorphine on a hystoidal patient. To believe that 
 stimulation, or excitation of a nerve, dissipates energy, for 
 that is what weakening means, is impossible. It has been 
 said that the process is no more than the interruption of 
 the storing of energy. How this can occur physiologically 
 is hard to see. It is a mere assumption, and in any case 
 it would not be " weakening." Regulation is not done by 
 enfeeblement in any class of organism except in patho- 
 logical states. That the heart is always being regulated 
 even in easy unstressed conditions is obvious. But I have 
 discovered that it is more regulated than is generally 
 known. Judging from cardiograms of all known kinds it 
 would be said that healthy heart-beats were of equal force. 
 This may be so practically, but it is not so actually. By 
 means of a liquid column in a small tube, actuated directly 
 from the radial artery, and thrown upon a screen with a 
 magnification of the moving liquid until it is, say, ten feet 
 long, it can be seen that few successive beats are equal, and 
 that the dicrotic notch, whether great or small, is perpetu- 
 ally varying. All muscle fibres do not do equal work at 
 all times. Interdependence and regulation are the ruling
 
 122 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 factors of all functions, and we may expect them in every 
 nervous mechanism. What occurs abnormally is often the 
 roughest guide to the normal. But, if it is taken as normal, 
 physiology pays the penalty in confusion, even though it 
 should always regard pathology as its nearest relative an 
 erring sister. 
 
 When it is remembered that no science can explain 
 itself, and that knowledge is a patterned web woven out of 
 all the sciences, it also seems that biology, and the whole 
 course of evolution, might be more frequently referred to in 
 physiological work than is usual. It was suggested above 
 that reciprocal innervation may thus be looked on as a 
 biological evolutionary process, a case in which muscles 
 grew up together as interdependent organs in which alter- 
 nate actions, however now regulated, were a sine qua non 
 of their existence. Knowing as we do the moulding 
 effects of stresses on bone, and the facts that the sclero- 
 blasts of sponges settle and work about non-vibrating 
 points, biology and physics may work together even in 
 such problems, and suggest that quasi-nervous effects may 
 be produced in muscle, not only by alternate stretching and 
 contraction, but also by stresses communicated through 
 and by bone and other cells. Thus, quite independent of 
 so-called inhibitory fibres, a sudden powerful contraction 
 of one muscle might throw another out of action by giving 
 such intensely sensitive cells a signal of positive relaxation. 
 It is not so long ago that the rhythmic action of opposed 
 muscles was supposed to be due to direct innervation, not 
 to alternate reflex contraction and stretching. It seems at 
 times as if more was attributed to nervous action than is 
 actually due to it. 
 
 It has been objected to some of these views that 
 excitation and inhibition are simple concepts, even if we
 
 INHIBITION AND CARDIAC VAGUS 123 
 
 say with Sherrington, " whatever they essentially may be," 
 and that they are opposed just as warming and cooling may 
 be. But what happens as regards energy when water 
 cools is known, as it is in the rise and fall of electric 
 potential. What happens to muscle energy in " inhibition " 
 we do not know, if the usual views of cardiac weakening 
 and the depressing functions of the vagus are held. A 
 complex chemical process at the end-plate must be posited, 
 and of that there seems no evidence. To call in the nervous 
 system to produce weakening toxins or the like, even by 
 intensifying cellular catabolism, appears too great an 
 assumption to make when there is a much simpler ex- 
 planation at hand. Many of the cardiograms shown as 
 proofs of cardiac inhibition seem wrongly interpreted. It 
 is, perhaps, not too presumptuous to say that their inter- 
 pretation is an extremely difficult art, and that even among 
 the most expert cardiologists there are at times great 
 differences in opinion. Having worked for months on the 
 subject with a disciple of our greatest cardiologist I shall, 
 perhaps, be pardoned for suggesting that the most eminent 
 physiologists may err in such a special branch of learning. 
 I have seen cardiograms showing the " weakening " of the 
 heart in which the amplitude of the beats was distinctly 
 increased, and the interval between them lengthened when 
 the theory of inhibition required pathological slowing and 
 decrease of amplitude. Such results undoubtedly occur in 
 extreme vagal stimulation ; but this is only what would 
 be expected on the views expressed in this place. But to 
 get better systoles and diastoles is not weakening. It is 
 also said that under vagal stimulation the conducting power 
 of the Bundle of His is " impaired." The evidence of this is 
 merely that the heart is generally slower. Such a state- 
 ment is a mere re-statement of an assertion. That the
 
 124 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 heart is sometimes unexcitable by a direct stimulus when 
 under vagal stimulation is just what would be expected 
 if the vagus is a controller and regulator until it conveys a 
 shock. So to say that the accelerator improves conduction 
 means no more than to say the whole heart is stimulated. 
 It is, again, a mere re-statement of an observation. 
 The truth seems to be that the accepted doctrine of the 
 heart is full of verbal logical fallacies. To declare that 
 " inhibition " causes lessened action is only to say that 
 lessened action occurs because it is somehow not so strong 
 in action as it was. We observe it, but to attribute it to 
 " inhibition " is to repeat the error of the bacteriologists 
 who attribute agglutinations to mystic " agglutinins," and 
 make an observation into a cause. If it is said that by 
 inhibition a cause is not meant, but that the word enables 
 us to link phenomena together, the question at once arises 
 whether they are not falsely linked. We cannot truly 
 oppose it to excitation, which after all is one of the purest 
 examples of a " cause " in physiology, for, whether its 
 nature is understood or not, we can bring an infinite number 
 of legitimate analogies to illustrate it. And, biologically, it 
 is seen that in any organism real inhibition is effected by 
 means of secretions which are very definite agents. Accord- 
 ing to P. F. Herring, feeding rats with thyroid causes not 
 only forced positive changes, such as a three-fold enlarge- 
 ment of the heart, and doubled weight of adrenals, but 
 negative ones such as a smaller thyroid. The gland is 
 not needed, is thrown out of action, and " inhibited " by 
 definite loss of function. No analogies can help out " inhi- 
 bition "if in all cessations or stoppages or weakening of 
 action we find substituted processes of direct action by 
 definite agents. When it is said, as has been said to me, 
 that a pure analogy of true inhibition is when a labourer
 
 INHIBITION AND CARDIAC VAGUS 125 
 
 drops his tools on hearing the dinner-bell, it may be answered 
 that here we have a direct conditioned reflex over- 
 coming excitation which has been slackened in effect by 
 real exhaustion of energy. A true analogy for such 
 " inhibitions " as are seen in intestinal action, even 
 though little will be known of that until the Auerbach 
 and Meissner plexuses are fully understood, is a 
 labourer pausing, taking in oxygen, and gathering up 
 energy for a big task. For on stimulating the intestinal 
 vagus the graphs show a preliminary slowing, and then 
 ampler, more effective movements. 
 
 That the inhibition theory is held firmly, even obstin- 
 ately, is no proof of its truth. Phlogiston was satisfactory 
 to many, and so apparently was " bad air " as a cause of 
 malaria. And yet Varro l in 36 B.C. actually attributed the 
 disease to minute animals. Columella even spoke of 
 mosquitoes as "armed with dangerous stings," animalia 
 infestis aculeis armata. It was necessary to wait nearly 
 two thousand years to get this verified by Ross and 
 Manson. It may be recollected that hundreds of years 
 ago an English physician was practically ruined by 
 attributing many diseases to invisibly small living agents. 
 Humoralists and solidists would be alike against him. 
 Von Uexkiill said that the object of science was not 
 truth but order, not having reached the pragmatic con- 
 ception that real order is truth; but it does not seem 
 that the theories of inhibition have provided either. 
 
 REFERENCES. 
 
 BAYLISS, W. M. (i) "Principles of General Physiology," 1915 ; 
 (2) " Cardiac Vagus," Brit. Med. Journ., London, Sept. 28, 
 1918. 
 
 1 See Appendix C, " Varro."
 
 126 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 BELL, CHARLES." The Hand," 1883. 
 
 COLUMELLA. Vol. i. p. 5. 
 
 CUSHNY, A. R. "Text-Book of Pharmacology." 
 
 DUCHENNE, G. B. A. "Physiologic des Mouvements," 1867. 
 
 HERRING, P. F. " Thyroid Feeding of Rats," Quar. Jonrn. 
 Exp. Physiol., London, 1917, vol. xi. 
 
 LISTER, JOSEPH. Proc. Royal Soc., 1859, pp. 367-80. 
 
 LUCIANI, L. " Human Physiology," 1911. 
 
 M'DoucALL, W. "Physiological Psychology." 
 
 MACKENZIE, Sir J. "Diagnosis and Treatment of Heart Affec- 
 tions," 1916. 
 
 ROBERTS, MORLEY. " The Function of the Cardiac Vagus," 
 Brit. Med. Journ., London, Sept. 14, 1918. 
 
 SCHAFER, E. A. " Essentials of Histology." 
 
 STEFANI. v. Luciani, supra, " Mechanism of the Heart." 
 
 THOMAS, H. O. "Nerve Inhibition," 1883. 
 
 VARRO, MARCUS TERENTIUS, 116-27 B.C. " De Re Rustica," 
 Book I. cap. xii. 
 
 WEBER, E. " Muskelbewegung," 1846. 
 
 WILSON, R. M. M'NAIR. "Tachycardia," Brit. Med. Journ., 
 London, Jan. 17, 1920.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE THEORY OF IMMUNITY 1 
 
 WHEN the late Sir William Osier jested at the expense 
 of the new school of theorizing biologists who 
 strive to perpetuate in peculiar neologisms highly doubtful 
 microscopic observations, he drew a caricature of their 
 specialized language, which had considerable merit. But 
 while he fought against specialism run mad hi verbal 
 constructions, which at once simulate knowledge and 
 obscure it, he might just as well have taken his examples 
 from the armoury of certain bacteriologists. If, in the 
 phenomena of mitosis, " the idiosphaerosome differentiates 
 into an idiocrytosome and an idiocalyptosome, both 
 surrounded by the idiosphserotheca," such a passage is 
 assuredly not more curious to observe than many which 
 cram a hundred Greek and Latin derivatives and hybrids 
 into a bacteriological " explanation." Although any 
 science seems liable to fall into the practical fallacy of 
 thinking a thing can be explained without reference or 
 relation to others, bacteriology appears least immune to 
 this logical disorder of thought. But since explanation 
 consists in the classification of observations with regard 
 
 1 (For abstract of this paper, and for Professor Benjamin Moore's 
 comments, see British Medical Journal, December 8, 1917, and December 
 22, 1917.) 
 
 137
 
 128 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 to more widely operating causes, or, as Mach says, in 
 showing that any given phenomenon is the unequivocal 
 function of its variables, what has to be demonstrated is 
 that those variables belong to recognized classes of factors. 
 We cannot explain life by saying that it is living, or a 
 bacteriologist by asserting that he is bacteriological. 
 
 It is due to such habits of thought, which now appear 
 to be confirmed, that there are fewer subjects coming under 
 the heads of general physiology and biochemistry in a 
 greater state of confusion than " immunity." This result 
 may, perhaps, be due to a false belief in the profundity 
 of the Teutonic mind which, as Benjamin Moore pointed 
 out, when commenting on an original communication of 
 mine in the British Medical Journal, had seized upon 
 French work, and fogged it in its best later manner. 
 It is indeed to Weismann and Ehrlich that the 
 worst results can be directly attributed, for just as the 
 biologist explained heredity by saying that it happened 
 owing to the nature of the organism, that is, to its ids, 
 determinants, and biophors, and the like, so Ehrlich in his 
 side-chain theory invented a marvellous verbal machinery 
 of immunization, every word of which contained a " cir- 
 culus in definiendo." To the practical English worker, 
 who usually distrusts the theoretic intellect, as if a general 
 idea were a proof of original sin unless it comes to him from 
 abroad, this scheme was a godsend. It appeared to save 
 thought, and instead of examining it critically he has 
 patched it up with new words as they seemed to be wanted, 
 just as the Ptolemaic astronomy added eccentric to 
 eccentric and epicycle to epicycle in order to represent 
 the planetary motions. And yet the whole theory is 
 obviously false. To this every modern physiologist would 
 subscribe, seeing that it depends for its validity on the
 
 THE THEORY OF IMMUNITY 129 
 
 supposition that life itself is the result of giant molecules. 
 It is, of course, wrong to infer that particular statements 
 are not true if rightly interpreted. "Antigens" certainly 
 produce specific " antibodies " as definite responses to the 
 chemical nature of the " antigen " ; but there is no reason 
 why this should not have been expressed in terms imply- 
 ing that any foreign or hostile elements introduced into an 
 organism tended to produce definite reactions of a pro- 
 tective nature. To invent or to lead to the invention of a 
 jargon containing such words as haptophore, ergophore, 
 complementophilogen, amboceptors, agglutinins, precipi- 
 tins, bacteriolysins, opsonins, syntoxoid, and so on, which 
 again bred other equally futile words of the same kind, 
 was but to stultify real explanation, and to cloud percep- 
 tion of the actual facts. When all this was hung upon the 
 giant molecule, a mere guess of Verworn's, the structure 
 naturally enough came to the ground. But, though the 
 whole theory of side-chains, except so far as they are 
 mere chemical phenomena, has been discredited, there are 
 yet able bacteriologists who continue to teach it as if Ehrlich 
 were accepted gospel. On my inquiring why they did so, 
 when they knew that the theory was no longer held by any 
 physiologist, two or three well-known men replied that it 
 was useful to students as a framework on which to hang 
 facts. To this it might be objected that, though a hat-rack 
 is useful to hang hats on, yet it is not the place to hang 
 hundredweights, and that when the hat-rack has the 
 additional disadvantage of being an imaginary one, there 
 will be more than common difficulties in the way of useful 
 arrangement. A compound may, perhaps, be cleared of 
 cobras by a mongoose ; but no competent zoologist will 
 employ the " imaginary mongoose " of fable at the task. 
 To teach what is not true merely as mnemonics is to 
 9
 
 130 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 ignore the truth that any fact falsely classified is not only a 
 danger in practice but leads to false views with regard to 
 other sciences, to say nothing of the distrust of the teacher 
 evoked in the intelligent student who does not swallow 
 what is offered to him without producing an " anti- 
 body " to the professional " antigen." For such a student 
 may have acquired some smattering of colloids, and have 
 actually begun to see, as Moore wrote, that the pioneer 
 work of the French "had been burdened with the intoler- 
 able weight of a useless philosophy of jangling terms for 
 a type of reaction well known in colloidal chemistry." 
 It will probably be found that a dictionary containing the 
 common terms of chemistry and biochemistry is fully 
 sufficient for the reactions even of complicated colloids. 
 An obscure reaction is not explained by attributing it to an 
 imaginary substance with the very "qualities which are the 
 subject of investigation. To invent one is to fall into the 
 error which Moliere satirized. To say all this is not to 
 belittle the magnificent practical results achieved by 
 bacteriologists. 
 
 That the results of the search into the actual nature of 
 immunity have apparently been so barren and so con- 
 fusing, is, however, not due to want of suggestions which 
 might really work for simplicity. Yet, so far as I am aware, 
 Moore and Whitley's paper on a simple theory of immune 
 reactions has by no means had the attention it deserved. 
 Roughly speaking, their note put forward the view that 
 immune bodies were to be classed with catalysts ; the 
 substrate being the cell or bacterium to be dissolved, or the 
 toxin to be rendered inert, the "complement" various 
 bodies with which the toxin became chemically united, and 
 the immune body, or " antibody," the catalyst which 
 insured such chemical combination or dissolution, and
 
 THE THEORY OF IMMUNITY 131 
 
 rendered the pathogenic cells or toxins harmless. Such a 
 process is obviously exactly similar to those which occur 
 with enzymes acting on any given substrate in the presence 
 of a combining body : so tyrosinase breaks up tyrosin, and 
 causes it to combine with the oxygen yielded by peroxide 
 bodies. A similar process occurs with the ordinary hydro- 
 lytic enzymes, as when fats, carbohydrates, and proteins 
 combine with water in the presence of their specific enzymes, 
 such as steapsin, amylopsin, and trypsin. It may, how- 
 ever, be further suggested that all these actions are 
 really immunizing actions, and that, instead of immune 
 bodies being classed among enzymes, the latter should be 
 classed generally among immune bodies, and both among 
 catalysts, the difference between the first two classes 
 being that enzymes dealing with food are a gradual 
 result of evolution, and that what are usually called 
 immune bodies are special ad hoc reaction complexes 
 of a similar order depending on the general powers of 
 reaction in the body tissues. 
 
 It is obvious that foods when not broken up are either 
 poisons or something which cannot be used, and must 
 be excreted. Thus proteins injected into the blood-stream 
 are haemolytic. To be endured or used they must be 
 broken up into animo-acids. What particular quality it 
 is in them which makes them " antigens " is obscure ; 
 but it will certainly be found eventually that it is due 
 in all cases to their " poisonous " (i.e. disturbing) action, 
 since they are wholly out of their evolutionary place. 
 It is said that there is no absolute relation between toxicity 
 and defensive reaction ; but this is only to state the obvious 
 fact that the organism is not armed at all points, and may 
 be destroyed before it can react, or that it is already 
 supplied with general immune catalysts which deal easily
 
 132 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 with some invasions and fail with others. It has only 
 been through an immense period of evolution that the 
 proteins and other food elements have come to stimulate 
 the production of specific enzymes or catalysts, and it is 
 within every clinician's knowledge that in certain condi- 
 tions of health these necessary reactions do not occur. 
 When that is so nutrition fails, and food becomes a poison. 
 If this is correct, and it cannot be doubted, nutrition 
 must be regarded as an actual process of real immuniza- 
 tion, in which secondary and simpler products are used 
 by the organism as food. Although I came to these 
 conclusions before I was aware of their work, it appears 
 that Abderhalden and Weinland hold views of this kind. 
 Weinland states that the subcutaneous injection of cane- 
 sugar produced or elicited invertin. Abderhalden's work 
 on the production of gestational immunity has exceptional 
 value in that it throws some light on the inhibition of 
 the invasive action of the chorionic villi on the uterine 
 wall, and thereby on cancer also, as I have suggested else- 
 where. In the earlier stages of evolution, in all cell life 
 now, and that of the intestinal absorption cells, the in- 
 gestion of foods is due to purely physical causes, i.e. 
 causes which are not sufficiently obscure to be labelled 
 " psychic " when they should be regarded as conditioned 
 reflexes. Like and dislike, choice and rejection, had, 
 and have (as regards cells), no long path to depend on. 
 Such reactions are not even simple reflexes. They depend 
 entirely on surface tension, on the nature of the cell envelope 
 and the body with which it comes in contact. It may 
 be assumed that primitive cells which certainly possessed 
 low and scanty reaction powers took in all things which 
 their physical nature did not reject. Some were innocuous, 
 and some were at once ejected. Some were harmful,
 
 THE THEORY OF IMMUNITY 133 
 
 and destroyed the organism in which they found them- 
 selves. Others were harmful as they stood, but by pro- 
 ducing a reaction body they were broken up and rendered 
 harmless. Others, again, were not only rendered harmless 
 but actually useful : i.e. they became foods because 
 they provoked a definite catalyst which hydrolyzed them. 
 Like and dislike of foods in the highly developed organism 
 are thus conditioned protective reflexes which defend 
 the body from all but foods selected through evolution. 
 Nutrition thus clearly falls under the head of immunity. 
 J. B. Farmer remarks that they are evidently closely 
 related. The sole real difference is that, in what is now 
 called immunization, the substrate is probably not em- 
 ployed usefully, though it remains possible that in some 
 cases destroyed pathogenic bacteria may actually be 
 used by the body they attack. In any case it is a possi- 
 bility of evolution for bacteria to become gradually a 
 factor of further growth. Such phenomena may have 
 occurred already, as it is at least possible that the colon 
 is partly a function of the bacteria that inhabit it, and 
 that some dead bacteria may be converted into food after 
 their parasitic free existence. 
 
 Nutrition being then a case of immunity, we must 
 infer that food itself originally produces ad hoc catalysts, 
 of an order similar to those produced by toxins. Enzymes 
 very rarely exist without the presence of their substrate. 
 The organism has a specialized method of producing them 
 on definite stimulation. Thus trypsin only appears on 
 trypsinogen coming into contact with enterokinaze, 
 though it would be better to say that when certain 
 colloidal reactions of pancreatic origin take place in the 
 presence of the latter trypsin is formed. Lactase cannot 
 be found in a meat-fed dog till some days after it is given
 
 134 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 milk. Before such a reaction occurs the whole of the 
 food products in the milk are not utilized. The com- 
 plementary or combining bodies in oxidation and hydro- 
 lytic processes are O and H 2 O, and in all enzyme action 
 there is a natural " complement." In the production of 
 special immunities due to infection it is difficult to discover 
 the combining body, although in most acute infections 
 it may be lipoid in nature, as is certainly suggested by the 
 rapid consumption of fats in fevers. Yet in diseases such 
 as typhoid, in which emaciation is not rapid, this does 
 not appear to be the case. The combining body in this 
 case may not be a lipoid but an albumenoid, and perhaps 
 the special one found in Peyer's Patches, where ulceration 
 takes place, is most exposed to be used as complement. 
 In many cases of sudden and extreme weakness with a 
 high febrile reaction, it may be suggested that the infection 
 is proteolytic. It thus appears as if future treatment 
 may not only include the provocation of the special catalyst, 
 but the early supply of a definite complement by injection 
 or in the food. In most infections it is probable that 
 what can be most easily spared goes first. It is possible 
 that the combining body is always what the bacteria 
 would naturally feed on, which may serve to explain 
 latent periods and the slow onset of fever in many cases. 
 
 What, then, is the action of the catalyst ? It must 
 be that it builds up in the bacterium a stable compound, 
 and so destroys the labile organism that takes in com- 
 plement as food, or that it neutralizes the toxins as they 
 are produced. Or it may so completely alter the combin- 
 ing body that the bacterium starves. As regards " free 
 toxins," the catalyst fulfils an obvious function by its 
 usual machinery. I suggest that the greatest function 
 of the many attributed to the phagocytes is not their
 
 THE THEORY OF IMMUNITY 135 
 
 ingestive powers, but their capacity of being used as 
 " complement " or a combining body. If sufficient of 
 their lipoids or proteins, say, is used up, they die and 
 become pus : if not, they survive and destroy the bacteria 
 which were attracted to them, and probably redigest the 
 lipoid complement taken up. In any case, the entrance 
 of the bacterium or toxin into the so-called phagocyte 
 is probably pathological. They may recover or perish. 
 If they die it is because they are used up in yielding parts 
 of themselves to the hostile cell. Every cell envelope 
 has lipoid substances in it ; but the phagocytes that cannot 
 yield any more from the outside yield it from within and 
 are destroyed. Even if that is not the cause of their 
 death, they may die from toxins entering into chemical 
 or molecular union with the lipoids of the membrane, 
 which is rendered functionless. If these suggestions have 
 any foundation, the leucocytes generally have another 
 rdle in defence than that commonly stated. And we 
 may infer that the substrate " seeks " them and their 
 lipoids under the influence of the special catalyst, rather 
 than that they " seek " the substrate. If this is so, 
 opsonins do not exist, and the phenomena they are supposed 
 to explain represent the fact that the easiest reached 
 " complement " is found by the tropisms of the bacteria 
 and the polynuclears. The leucocytes are the cheapest 
 sacrifice the body can make. 
 
 There seems plenty of evidence that enzymes and all 
 catalysts appear only when the organism is stimulated by 
 the particular substrate with which they deal. There are, 
 however, according to Bayliss, cases in which their par- 
 ticular substrate is wanting. For instance, it seems that 
 lactase is found in almonds, as adrenalin is found in the 
 skin of the toad. We say, then, that it is an accidental
 
 136 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 product of metabolism, though in one sense all such are 
 accidental. They may, however, have been provoked 
 by early embryonic substrates, and possibly subserve some 
 function. Onslow showed the skins of some coloured 
 rabbits contained a peroxidase, the cause of the colour. 
 The " adaptation " of the organism to any substrate part 
 of its environment must have been accidental to begin 
 with. Some cells had the power of response, and others 
 lacked it. This was so in the early stages of evolution, 
 and the same remains true now in every case of recovery 
 or death when an infection occurs. Protective, continued, 
 and successful reaction is adaptation. There are striking 
 analogies between such reactions, and those provoked by 
 drugs such as the metals. What for instance is the action 
 of arsenic ? It combines with the " complement " it 
 finds, and thus kills the epithelial cells which, according to 
 Filehne, are then digested. But killing a cell is combining 
 with it or part of it. Arsenic in lethal quantities is such 
 a protoplasm poison that there can be no swift reaction 
 process resulting in a catalyst which builds it up into a 
 harmless stable compound. In small continuous doses it 
 appears to produce fats, i.e. possibly a superabundance of 
 complement. Complement is thus a common bodily 
 product, not anything specially manufactured by specific 
 reactions, and therefore immunization must in many 
 cases mean a stimulation of the cells which produce com- 
 plement naturally. Immunity to arsenic, then, is most 
 likely due in great part to an increased production of 
 lipoids. But tolerance is immunity. Immunization is 
 thus a process as normal as digestion, save that all the 
 products are finally extruded as useless. The processes 
 leading to cure are of the same order. To give a homely 
 illustration we may say that if there is disturbance at a
 
 137 
 
 meeting the disturbers are the substrate : the chairman 
 who orders them to be thrown out the provoked catalyst, 
 and those who act on his advice the complement. We may 
 even note that the " complement " not unseldom goes to 
 hospital in combination with the " toxin." In such cases 
 immunization is the operation of a body of stewards 
 capable of immediate and skilled combination. It is 
 worth notice, since it has frequently been suggested that 
 all living action is based on the same principles, that the 
 stewards are free amoeboid wandering bodies ; while the 
 audience of cells of the temporary organic body we call a 
 " meeting " stay where they are, unless there is a violent 
 destructive reaction. In what we commonly call an 
 organism the white cells, being capable of rapid reproduc- 
 tion, and not stationary portions of basal functioning organs, 
 can be destroyed and replaced. Part of their normal 
 function is to die, as it is of soldiers in war. Adequate 
 military preparation is expectant immunity in a nation, 
 and an organized police force means the same in a society. 
 Again, it can be repeated that much light may be thrown 
 on many obscure physiological problems by observation 
 of the simple social processes taking place before our 
 eyes. On these lines we get wholly away from Ehrlich, 
 and perceive that, if enzymes, etc., are immune bodies, 
 immune bodies in their turn may be classed with the factors 
 of digestion among catalysts generally. 
 
 What do we mean when we speak of the bactericidal 
 qualities of the blood ? Undoubtedly the blood-plasm, 
 when healthy, destroys or incapacitates invaders. But 
 what is the mechanism by which it does so, and among 
 what phenomena are we to class such mechanistic re- 
 actions ? I am unable to conceive that they can be any 
 other type than that which is characteristic of life generally.
 
 138 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 There must be activating catalysts. If that is so blood 
 may not be truly bactericidal until it is invaded, and only 
 then if it is healthy, i.e. if it possesses normal powers of 
 reaction. Such views account for the high mortality 
 among the very healthy in some disorders, while the sickly 
 person who is, perhaps, half-poisoned by an excess of many 
 provoked catalysts is prepared, at least partially, for any 
 kind of invasion. The organism, too, has to deal with, 
 destroy, or utilize its own products. Each organ must 
 deal with its own excreta, with the excreta of its neighbour 
 colonies, and for these purposes reacts on their stimula- 
 tion. Its reactions with invaders must employ like 
 machinery. Life itself depends on immunization which is 
 active warfare. 
 
 Immunity, however, does not always seem to be merely 
 a matter of the increase of the blood's bactericidal qualities, 
 to whatever catalysts that may be due, but to local con- 
 ditions. How else can relapses be explained ? For 
 instance, there are the relapses of typhoid fever. When the 
 fastigium has been reached and passed, and when on any 
 theory a defence should have been acquired, the tempera- 
 ture again rises, and there is another attack. In the same 
 way a catarrh of the lungs may disappear after a due 
 reaction period, and another patch will occur. Such facts, 
 though they do not negative the ordinary views of im- 
 munity suggested above, at least show that prolonged 
 febrile reactions do not always produce complete temporary 
 immunity : the most probable explanation being that the 
 local lesions in these cases are external, as the bowel, 
 say, in typhoid is properly external, and are with diffi- 
 culty exposed to the immunizing agents, owing to local 
 swellings and stasis, or to the incomplete response of the 
 weakened organism in the production of the combining
 
 THE THEORY OF IMMUNITY 139 
 
 body. The catalyst may in that case be present in abund- 
 ance ; but it has nothing to work with, and the substrate 
 flourishes on tissues which would not be attacked if the 
 normal complement were present. In some cases cata- 
 lytic actions may themselves prove harmful. It is perfectly 
 possible that the obscure and dangerous phenomena of 
 anaphylaxis are due to a sudden action of a reversible 
 catalyst breaking down what was before built up, and 
 again setting toxins free. That the immunizing reactions 
 are permanently reversible if a disassociation factor such 
 as acid (Morgenroth and Ascher) or alkali (Sachs) is intro- 
 duced, now seems certain. These workers are quoted 
 by Browning (Brit. Med. Journ., Dec. 6, 1915). 
 
 Such conclusions certainly reinforce the suggestion that 
 in all infections an effort should be made to determine 
 with exactitude the natural combining body used in the 
 body's defence, and that this should be supplied in abund- 
 ance by feeding or injection. On the views expressed the 
 lipoids or other combining bodies found normally in the 
 organism would then be spared, since it is only reasonable 
 that a free lipoid, etc., would be dealt with rather than 
 a fixed lipoid, say in the cell envelope. While vaccines 
 may provoke the catalyst, they cannot always provoke the 
 " complement," although when we consider some drugs 
 (and tolerance of drugs, as has been said, no doubt comes 
 under the head of immunity) they may do so indirectly. 
 Though arsenic when used as a drug is often useful, its 
 value may not always depend on its bactericidal qualities, 
 but on its encouragement of lipoid manufacture. 
 
 Thus finally we see that nutrition itself is but a case 
 of immunity, and, instead of immunity being infinitely 
 complex, on a general view it is no more than an example 
 of the fact that living protoplasm develops machinery
 
 140 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 to deal with the assaults it undergoes ; in some cases 
 changing and making use of what it ingests, in others 
 altering bodies which cannot be used, but may be made 
 harmless. 
 
 The points of the likeness between a catalyst and 
 an engine or tool are many. It is something made, a 
 reaction to needs. It works and remains the same. It 
 only wears out gradually. It makes a long process short, 
 a difficult one easy. It can build up and break down. 
 Such qualities can be seen in a sociological example if 
 we take two living communities, or societies combining 
 for a common purpose, for then combinations will result 
 which have the most remarkable likeness to such catalysts, 
 and exhibit biological phenomena which throw a light 
 on the reason that enzyme bodies have reversible re- 
 actions. We may, for instance, suppose that a botanical 
 and a zoological society find it necessary for purposes of 
 existence to take a common house. It is obvious that 
 we have here a symbiotic but not necessarily a symphilic 
 community, and it is equally obvious that both original 
 purposes must be served, or the whole structure fails. To 
 carry on work some of the individuals must represent the 
 others, and this common secretarial office remains as a 
 formed reaction body or engine for getting the work done. 
 When one society is most active at any given time its 
 action may be regarded as synthetic so far as it is con- 
 cerned, and the process implies a temporary displacement 
 or breaking down of the others. When this is over the 
 reverse action takes place. But all the time the formed 
 reaction or joint secretarial body remains. An enzyme 
 can thus be compared with the common alternative 
 executive of at least a double body which has different 
 internal but common external ends. However extravagant
 
 THE THEORY OF IMMUNITY 141 
 
 such a homely illustration may appear it probably repre- 
 sents actual biochemical facts ; for it shows how two 
 molecules living in hostile symbiosis must affect each 
 other and produce reaction bodies which are highly complex, 
 and represent in turn the energies of each molecule. Such 
 a view affords a reasonable ground of explanation for the 
 reversible reactions of catalysts themselves. Without such 
 reactions it is not easy to follow the possible ways of growth. 
 
 It will not seem absurd to some if it is said that these 
 likenesses are to be found at the bottom of all growth, 
 whether of atoms or nations, and that they are part of a 
 universal law which may be expressed thus : All life and 
 growth is fundamentally the forced result of a symbiosis 
 of differing bodies in which hostile energies become the 
 common, mutual, and reciprocal internal stimuli of the 
 conjoint individual. This includes all living things from 
 the two molecules (or more), each with a catalyst, which 
 probably make up the simplest form of life. 
 
 To summarize the views expressed it may be said that 
 (i) To understand immunity it must include all processes 
 of nutrition. (2) All unsplit ingested bodies are " poison- 
 ous " or rejected as neutral and useless. (3) Enzymes 
 are the catalysts which build up for storage or break 
 down for use. (4) Immune bodies in infections are pro- 
 voked catalysts dealing more or less well with the sub- 
 strate bacterium, or toxin. (5) Poisons, metallic or 
 alkaloid, etc., when tolerance is established, have pro- 
 voked a catalyst to deal with them. (6) " Complement " 
 is not a fixed quantity, but the special or general com- 
 bining body used by the catalyst and the substrate. 
 (7) Many of the difficulties experienced by bacteriologists 
 in reaching satisfactory conclusions on immunity are due 
 to their neglect of colloidal chemistry.
 
 142 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 It certainly appears that the terms employed in general 
 physiology should be sufficient for bacteriology, and 
 observers of fresh phenomena ought to be chary of coining 
 new words. Their hasty multiplication usually implies 
 some additional hypothesis. It is characteristic of a 
 false explanation to require an increasing number of 
 sub-hypotheses while a real one abolishes a multitude of 
 superfluous terms, and, displaying a phenomenon as the 
 function of known variables, by such a disclosure becomes 
 essentially a simplification. 
 
 REFERENCES. 
 
 ABDERHALDEN, EMIL. " Biological Reactions in Pregnancy," 
 Brit. Med. Journ., London, Jan. 24, 1914, p. 207. 
 
 BAYLISS, M. W. " Principles of General Physiology," 1915. 
 
 BROWNING. Brit. Med. Journ., London, June 2, 1915. 
 
 FARMER, J. B. "Plant Life," 1913. 
 
 MOORE, B., and WHITLEY. Biochem. Journ., 1907, London, 
 vol. iv. p. 165. 
 
 MOORE, B. Brit. Med. Journ., London, Dec. 22, 1917. 
 
 MORGENROTH and ASHER. v. Browning, ibid., Feb. 6, 1915. 
 
 ONSLOW, H. Proc. Royal Soc., 1915, Book xxxix. p. 36. 
 
 ROBERTS, MORLEY. Brit. Med. Journ., London, Dec. 8, 1917. 
 
 SACHS. v. Browning, ibid., Feb. 6, 1915. 
 
 VERWORN, MAX. " Die Biogenhypoithese," Jena. 
 
 WEINLAND. Brit. Med. Journ., London, Jan. 24, 1914, p. 207.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE CANNIBAL IN EVOLUTION 
 
 WE speak very commonly of the romance of science, 
 and in its every branch, however recondite 
 and apparently remote from human interest, there is that 
 sense of adventure which makes its votaries thrill with 
 expectation. The search for a principle which may 
 throw light upon almost palpable obscurity is not unlike 
 the work of the explorer who climbs a peak in order to 
 discover a way through the unknown. Not only the 
 traveller stands " silent upon a peak in Darien." But 
 to discover a new general law, or even to extend one, is 
 far more than such a distant prospect. It is to camp 
 in the wilderness and gather strength for the morrow's 
 task. In the world of geography what is known is known, 
 and cannot be forgotten. The time must come when 
 the explorer's work will be done. But science is limitless, 
 and so is human history, for there is not only the future 
 which must become at last a tale that is told, but also 
 the illimitable field of the past still as little unmapped as 
 the fabled Africa of the mediaeval cartographer. It is, 
 indeed, but a dim and faded palimpsest, or some inscrip- 
 tion in an unknown tongue, of which we know but a few 
 words, that may prove keys by which it may be deciphered. 
 What of the march of power and intellect in man it may 
 
 reveal we can only guess, though we may surmise from 
 
 143
 
 144 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 human experiences and our own nature that it must 
 contain terrible passages, which some, perhaps, would 
 fear to look upon. 
 
 In the study of anthropology there is, perhaps, the 
 most legitimate field for the constructive imagination. 
 So much may be seen in the realm of history, the brief 
 portion of the story of man with which we are partially 
 acquainted. A history without imagination is but a false 
 and dusty record, a sketch in black and white of what was 
 once a glowing fresco. The shelves of libraries are full 
 of such dead documents, and only occasionally does the 
 reader light upon a work, or even a passage in a work, 
 to which the realizing imagination has given a sense of 
 motion and life. Such a passage is to be found in Pro- 
 fessor Murray's Rise of the Greek Epic, when he describes 
 vividly, and with convincing power, the probably course 
 and conduct of an early migration in the ^Egean Sea. 
 It is a matter for regret that even anthropology, with all 
 its immense implications, should exhibit much of that 
 restricting tendency of scientific men to confine themselves 
 to special rather than general fields. Yet just as its study 
 throws light upon the conduct and behaviour of living races, 
 so many special studies, that, perhaps, of Pelasgian myth 
 or history, may help to solve the mysteries of the un- 
 historic past. Even if it does not do so directly, it will 
 show specialists that to ignore the imagination is to deprive 
 themselves of the most powerful weapon in the whole 
 armoury of research. If in the course of some daring and 
 slenderly based speculations their rash author makes one 
 possible suggestion, he is as much justified as the poet who 
 writes but one memorable line. In such a fluctuant, 
 inchoate branch of learning, it cannot be said that know- 
 ledge has yet reached the period when theory is held to be
 
 THE CANNIBAL IN EVOLUTION 145 
 
 dangerous, which is, I must suppose, the time when the 
 supporters of some particular view wish to see every one's 
 energy consumed in the search for facts to uphold it. 
 But, to alter the phrase of the Master of Trinity, none is 
 infallible, even the oldest, who not unnaturally are apt 
 to regard their settled opinions with the greatest respect. 
 A new hypothesis, or a new application of an ancient 
 one, is, however, in its way as much a fact as bones in a 
 tumulus, and may perhaps do work as important as the 
 Piltdown skull. 
 
 Among the curiosities of the human intellect is its 
 great reluctance to acknowledge anything now regarded 
 with moral reprobation as once normal to mankind. The 
 tendency of all races to place the Golden Age in the past, 
 which is the result of a dread of change, since any alteration 
 may bring disaster, and must cause temporary disorder, 
 acts thus as a forgotten complex even in science. In spite 
 of some authorities having recognized the probability that 
 all races have passed through a stage of cannibalism, 
 many others of equal or greater prestige appear to regard 
 the notion with horror. 
 
 It is objectionable to their moral feelings, and, although 
 it is the first duty of the scientific thinker to clear his 
 mind of prejudice, some are obviously unable to do so. 
 Accordingly one very great authority practically asserts, 
 not without feeling, that horror of incest is a primary feeling 
 in man, an abstract notion thus preceding experience a 
 totally impossible position to occupy in any "science" 
 but theology. As it happens I myself encountered this 
 moral feeling with regard to cannibalism, when in an essay, 
 published in an obscure journal more than twenty-five 
 years ago, I attributed to it very great and important 
 evolutionary results. It is true that no notice of an
 
 146 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 immature paper was taken by any authority, a fact I by 
 no means resented, although hardly then fully aware 
 that any variation in thought, like a variation in the 
 physical conformation of an individual, is more likely to be 
 swamped than perpetuated. Since then, in discussing the 
 view suggested, I have found the moral complex showing 
 itself, at times with almost theological ardour, even in 
 the instructed. They seemed willing to agree with 
 M'Cullough and others that a stage of cannibalism might 
 have been universal, or nearly universal; but to view it 
 as a powerful factor of progress and human advance was 
 something not easy to masticate, much less to swallow. 
 Yet some reason may possibly be shown for believing that 
 cannibalism, combined with war for a special purpose, can 
 help us to account for many problems yet unsolved. Even 
 a very simple suggestion sometimes acts as a catalyst, 
 and hastens mental reactions. It may often help to 
 neutralize moral prejudice, and increase in some measure 
 the number of those who have learnt to adopt Spinoza's 
 attitude towards humanity. Man's acts, his very per- 
 turbations of "spirit," are to be studied as we study 
 thunderstorms. 
 
 If such views are not refused a hearing it may be sug- 
 gested that they will throw some light upon the develop- 
 ment of man as an intellectual animal. And if it is assumed, 
 as certainly seems likely, that Keith is right in tracing back- 
 ward to Pleistocene times the modern type of skull, it 
 should help to fill up the gap in development between 
 that type and such as Piltdown man. For if the modern 
 skull goes back so far, and the Piltdown type is so late, the 
 very stability of the modern type suggests that there must 
 have been a period, long in years or centuries, but short by 
 the geologic clock, in which man became immensely
 
 147 
 
 plastic and changed with relative rapidity. The evidence 
 seems quite ample which tends to prove great stability 
 of type after the middle or late Pleistocene era, and such 
 stability shows to all who believe in environmental in- 
 fluence, or in natural selection, that since then there has 
 been no great fundamental change of moulding factors. 
 Some, indeed, imagine that what is called civilization has 
 been such a factor. This is practically assumed by 
 most who hold that " modern " man is historically modern. 
 But, as any change seems great to individuals who are 
 disturbed, it is natural for most to come rapidly to the 
 conclusion that great past political and social changes may 
 have had, and perhaps must have had, an evolutionary 
 effect even if comparatively recent. Yet as most changes 
 are now but new orientations in thought, which do not 
 lead to the destruction of established physical types, 
 and as such factors of selection as ill-health, defective 
 mentation, and so forth, have continually operated from the 
 dawn of life, no vital factors can be discovered working at 
 the present time which suggest the new and rapid evolution 
 of a cranial type. If such factors worked, one or more of 
 them must have disappeared. Since the ancient complex 
 of imagination, fear and regret has ceased to picture the 
 happy golden ages of the past as a restful paradise compared 
 with the dim uncertain paths of the future, even the most 
 conservative only employ their imagination in construct- 
 ing ideal scenes in a blissful state of ordered feudalism, and 
 for very many it has become a habit to picture them- 
 selves as the apex and acme of possible mankind. So 
 indeed it was in the past, for even if the poets of Greece 
 and Rome looked backward to the Saturnia regna, as 
 the tribes of Central Australia do to Alcheringa, they 
 would yet maintain that they had reached a summit of
 
 148 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 civilization from which only a descent was possible. Man- 
 kind thus tends naturally to believe that great attainment, 
 even if fabulous peace has passed away, is their own work, 
 and the work of their immediate ancestors. It follows 
 that there is a natural prejudice against admitting that, in 
 all human powers and attributes of brain, man's remote 
 ancestors were his equals, even though they lacked his 
 present knowledge. To get rid of such predispositions is 
 part of the task of science, if it would solve the problem as 
 to the factors which were at work at the time of man's 
 greatest cranial plasticity. 
 
 While it is not difficult to believe that Mousterian man 
 possessed an average cerebral capacity more than equal to 
 that found now, some find it hard to credit such brains 
 with imagination and powers of logical thought. Yet Fraser 
 has shown that many who are called the lowest savages 
 reason with perfect logic, even if they argue from un- 
 examined and illicit premisses. It ill befits the average 
 man of the present day to cast a stone at them, since 
 the subjection of his own major premisses to critical 
 examination invariably causes him much uneasiness. 
 Even the greatest are at times subject to the same 
 weakness. Ancient man was always reasoning and, 
 since pure logic has nothing to do with the truth or false- 
 hood of propositions, but only with their agreement, there 
 is no reason to suppose that a school logic of merit might 
 not have been composed from a study of the ratio- 
 cinative processes of the earliest modern type of brain 
 known to us. We may, indeed, analyse further, and in 
 so doing discover that logic is to be found in even lower 
 human types, or in the animals themselves. A cat who 
 smells a mouse, and takes means to catch it, is using 
 direct inference. Moreover, in considering the evolution
 
 THE CANNIBAL IN EVOLUTION 149 
 
 of the imagination and intellect we are apt, according 
 to Keith's views, to think that when we make great dis- 
 coveries they must be relatively greater than those dis- 
 covered in the past. Yet it may be doubted if Napier 
 of Merchistoun made a greater discovery than the un- 
 known genius who first counted on his fingers. It is at 
 least certain that, though logarithms lessen labour, they 
 have not lessened it to the millionth extent that finger 
 reckoning, and all that has flowed from it, including 
 logarithms themselves, have since achieved. To learn 
 how to make fire was a greater discovery than any 
 made by Watt, while the inventors of the wheel or the 
 wedge must have been men of the very highest capacity. 
 The same may be said of the arts, for the discovery 
 that an outline represented in some magical way a real 
 animal or a person, whether it was found out by some 
 savage boy outlining a shadow, cast by the camp- 
 fire, on a neighbouring rock, or by some primeval 
 master, was an effort of much more amazing originality 
 than a masterpiece by Rembrandt or Rubens. We 
 cannot, perhaps unjustly, attribute most, or even many, 
 of such inventions to a Piltdown brain. The question 
 is then how it came about that relatives, close or far 
 removed, of Homo Eoanthropus gave rise, within a com- 
 paratively short period of time, to the later and still 
 prevalent type, capable of the highest intellectual efforts. 
 A solution of the problem may, perhaps, be found in 
 cannibalism as the chief factor, if it first gave rise to 
 organized war and the development of weapons, such as 
 made the best period of Chellean art a time of master- 
 pieces in flint. 
 
 It is certainly justifiable to assume that some such 
 factor is needed for explanation. If the missing link
 
 150 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 is not so much a typ^of man as a missing page of human 
 history, of which the previous and following parts show 
 immense changes, we are equally within our rights 
 in filling up the lacuna by the use of an adequate 
 hypothesis as we should be in supplying to a tragic 
 play a missing scene which, to render later acts possible, 
 must have contained a murder. In such a mutilated 
 script there is a strict parallel to what was probably 
 the most tragic part of human history. The play 
 would perpetually suggest the action of the missing 
 portion, and so, in later and modern history, and in the 
 instincts of man, we have hints, and more than hints, 
 that obscene tribal survivals represent historic universal 
 truth, even if nothing is said here of cave remains, skulls, 
 or bones, which are the island peaks of the submerged 
 continent of anthropology. 
 
 If such deep seas cover that lost land they may yet 
 be sounded, and, as it were, dredged, so that in the end, 
 by actual evidence and logical inference combined, the 
 unknown may be mapped out. If we judge from what 
 remains in those savage customs which offer the best 
 means of deduction, we get lines pointing in definite 
 directions. If more than one line indicates the same 
 solution, the inferential value of both is much in- 
 creased. Such a method is similar to that by which 
 bee-hunters seek the tree -hive where they look for 
 honey. By the observation of the flight of the insects 
 on their homeward path they obtain lines of triangula- 
 tion which are a sure guide. As regards the early 
 history of man one such line may be, perhaps, found in 
 Atkinson's Primal Law the repository of views too 
 much neglected. From a study of " avoidance " in 
 forms well known to him, its author at least deduced
 
 THE CANNIBAL IN EVOLUTION 151 
 
 something of the nature and origin of the primal family, 
 its laws and customs. He pictures the savage ape-like 
 ancestor of man as the father and husband of all his 
 female children, as well as of the stolen women who bore 
 them. An immense and overpowering sex jealousy 
 led to the extrusion of the male offspring when they 
 reached the age of puberty. Such sons broke into the 
 sanctity of the family circle dominated by some other 
 ancestor of man, and set up for themselves. Incest at 
 that time was not intercourse between father and 
 daughter, but between brother and sister, son and aunt, 
 or mother, and the penalty assigned and exacted for 
 ages was death. According to Atkinson, and here I 
 by no means follow him, such a system was probably 
 broken down when the patriarch grew old by the ex- 
 ceptional influence of some " wife " who retained great 
 maternal love for her latest grown-up male child. It 
 seems that other more widely operating and less 
 abstract motives can be shown, which must have exerted 
 their influence on the husband and father of the camp 
 and all its members. 
 
 It is now some fifteen years ago since I deduced from 
 certain social phenomena, which I propose to indicate, 
 a particular theory of the family and the two-class 
 tribe. This I submitted to the late Sir Laurence Gomme 
 and Dr. Haddon. After some consideration they re- 
 ferred me to Atkinson's paper, reprinted in Lang's Social 
 Origins, as they were of opinion that my views had been 
 largely anticipated by him. I discovered this to be a 
 fact, and for a short time experienced those feelings of 
 indignation natural in one who believes himself a 
 pioneer, and finds a camp pitched on what he thought 
 an unknown territory. Such feelings did not last long.
 
 152 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 When a hypothesis is immediately verifiable, and dis- 
 covery is anticipated by others, there is little ..or no 
 compensation. If Adams had been forestalled by Lever- 
 rier in the discovery of Uranus by long months or 
 years, and the planet had actually been found for the 
 more fortunate mathematician, the sense of disap- 
 pointment must have been acute. But in my own case 
 no such verification was at hand, and I was quite aware 
 from the attitude of those who advised me, and my own 
 knowledge of theory, that Atkinson's views were thought 
 of little value. Naturally they did not seem so to me, 
 for while he had deduced his theory from the facts of the 
 social phenomenon, known as " avoidance," of which 
 the last remnants are to be found tabulated in the 
 ecclesiastical Table of Affinities, I had come to the same 
 conclusion by a deduction from opposed and anta- 
 gonistic phenomena, the existence of which his views 
 helped to explain. For if he drew his premisses from 
 savage life and " avoidance," I drew my own from 
 certain facts observed by myself, and even now observ- 
 able by all, in modern society whether in England 
 or elsewhere, facts not of avoidance, but of a peculiar form 
 of jealousy, which seemed to me an obvious survival of 
 ancient instinct. 
 
 It is a truth, known to almost all wives and to women 
 generally, whether they have observed it in their own 
 husbands and fathers, or in those of others, that some- 
 thing more than an over-exigent desire to ensure their 
 female children being comfortably and suitably settled, 
 prevents many men from welcoming suitors for their 
 daughters. And I may say here that the deductions 
 I draw from this are probably seldom known to the 
 fathers themselves. To act instinctively without the
 
 THE CANNIBAL IN EVOLUTION 153 
 
 knowledge of the why or wherefore is common enough, 
 and the origin of many surprising facts can be explained 
 by certain developments in modern psychological theory 
 and practice. Not a few men object to the presence 
 of other men in their house, especially when they are 
 not present, even when all thoughts of purely marital 
 jealousy are wanting. They even object to the " party," 
 that feminine function which tends to lead to love 
 affairs. But the main fact is that the resistance such 
 show to the marriage of their daughters cannot be ex- 
 plained on acknowledged social principles. The young 
 people may exhibit every sign of true affection, the 
 suitor may be of good character, even of high social 
 standing, and yet the father will raise every imaginable 
 objection, and put every conceivable obstacle in the way 
 of the desired marriage. In many cases I have known 
 the young men forbidden the house on the mere ground, 
 the last the father had, that he did not like the man, 
 whom he slandered in the bosom of his family without 
 being aware he was precipitating flight and an elopement, 
 which is the modern form of marriage by capture. There 
 are cases, well known in later literary history, in which, 
 after furious struggles, this result has occurred, and in 
 biographies we see the parent's resistance put down to 
 anything but its real cause. That is said to have been 
 his great affection for his daughter, her necessity in the 
 house, her father's need of companionship, or the needs 
 of her mother ; but never in any instance to deep-seated 
 sex jealousy of instinctive origin. Without relating in 
 any detail my own observations and experiences in this 
 matter, I may say that on making inquiry of many men 
 with daughters, quite a number of them owned that they 
 had seen in others what I had seen, and a few, who had
 
 154 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 been accustomed to the analysis of motive in various 
 branches of medicine, actually admitted that they had 
 felt the very emotions of sex jealousy I have indicated 
 as yet existing in modern society. Moreover, on consult- 
 ing a lady, herself no mean anthropologist, she declared 
 the phenomenon, whether understood or not, was known 
 to all women by experience or report, and that it was 
 not infrequently hinted at in private feminine conversa- 
 tion. The more observations I have made the more I 
 have been convinced that the facts are as stated, and it 
 was from the hypothesis that even now large numbers of 
 men, without any desire of possession apparent to them- 
 selves, are sexually jealous as to their female children, 
 that I deduced the same conclusion that Atkinson had 
 reached by the opposed but complementary hypothesis 
 of avoidance. It may here be remarked that the common 
 sex coldness between members of the same family is thus 
 not due to being brought up together, as commonly 
 supposed, but that it is the last result of the system of 
 avoidance become instinctive in boys and girls by long 
 ages of inheritance, in which the penalty of infraction of 
 parental law was death. Such a conclusion, it may be 
 remarked, is against the view that the young men sought 
 their wives at any time in the camp from which they 
 had been extruded. 
 
 It should, however, be made quite clear that these 
 ancient surviving instincts are not so vocal or so clamour- 
 ous as to speak clearly in those who now retain them. 
 The most jealous parent of the kind may not have the 
 slightest notion of the reasons moving him. As far as 
 each successive suitor is concerned, it is to him a case of 
 " Dr. Fell," and there is an end of it. But many are 
 distinctly conscious of the facts, though such conscious-
 
 THE CANNIBAL IN EVOLUTION 155 
 
 ness is in many cases sedulously hidden, even if acknow- 
 ledged, as I have reason to believe, in the confessional 
 or the physician's consulting room. I know that such 
 an analysis, however supported, is as little likely to meet 
 with approval as the suggestion that cannibalism itself 
 is responsible for much of our mental make-up. The 
 reception of the idea, even by many of those who might 
 be supposed to view all things in the " dry light " of 
 the Freudian psycho-analysis, has been almost one of 
 tumultuous opposition, although the light that Freud 
 casts, both on normal and abnormal cerebration, has been 
 of the utmost value. It may, I think, hold a lamp even 
 in anthropology, and it is possible that certain conclusions 
 drawn by its aid in the matter now discussed may 
 strengthen the growing belief in it as a weapon of dis- 
 covery. According to the views expressed in other 
 places, it is far more than probable that what proves of 
 value in individual psychology will aid to unravel the 
 tangled web of racial subconsciousness in which the in- 
 stincts have their root. Few are now totally ignorant of 
 Freud's work in the analysis of the subconscious mind. 
 However they may look upon it, or upon some of the 
 extravagances of its more indiscreet advocates, not 
 many can be found to deny that the hypothesis of hidden 
 complexes, by which is meant a series of cerebral reflex 
 arcs still in a state of subconscious tone and capable of 
 producing peculiar effects, has exerted an immense in- 
 fluence on the theory of conscious mentation, or mental 
 action. An early impression, although forgotten, or dis- 
 sociated from the general web of memory, since a memory 
 can only be the repeated passage of impulses over many 
 definite synapses, may condition for better or worse the 
 whole life of the individual to whom the incident has
 
 156 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 happened. It has not, however, been general to attribute 
 good rather than evil, health rather than disease, to such 
 unconscious memories. But kindly, or thoughtful, or 
 unselfish acts may leave their mark in the same way, 
 and a sound early education is, perhaps, no more than 
 the excitation of such useful complexes. More is 
 definitely known, however, of the evil effects of painful 
 forgotten incidents which often yield to psycho-analysis. 
 By a skilful use of morbid symptoms, shown in myriad 
 forms, the operator may link up the past with the present, 
 and demonstrate to the patient the trifling origin of his 
 ills. To do so seems to be the drainage of what we may 
 call figuratively a mental abscess. I am not aware that 
 any one has suggested that the human brain or mind, 
 the depository of the racial subconsciousness of man, 
 must show in its very constitution similar phenomena. 
 There must be human deep-seated hidden complexes 
 determining thought and action, and showing, if we could 
 read them aright, through what avenues our ancestors 
 have passed. When some hidden complex, which might 
 have worked morbid results, has been sublimated, as the 
 psycho-analysts call the process, the hidden repressed 
 energy makes a healthy path for itself in the brain, and 
 lifts up such things as repressed sex feelings into devo- 
 tion, altruism, and even self-sacrifice. Such must have 
 been part of the method by which the racial type of brain 
 has been developed, and so certain do I regard this that 
 I think it might have been possible to deduce from racial 
 history, folk-lore, and even written history, the very theory 
 of psycho-analysis itself. Myth and legend often enough 
 are sublimations, but in the deep melancholy, or unmiti- 
 gated brutality of some races, may be detected ancient 
 influences not so fortunate in their issue. Reversion to
 
 THE CANNIBAL IN EVOLUTION 157 
 
 ancient type in the masses of a race, a subject not remote 
 from us, is rendered easier to understand. For in their 
 brains lie quiescent the memory and actual cerebral 
 machinery which once more may be set working by some 
 great stimulus. War could not be the passionate relief 
 in action that it is to many, if its memories were not 
 graven deep even in the peaceful. So now, perhaps, in 
 the night-horrors of children or their elders, there may 
 be some dim relic of ancestral fear, which many childish 
 tales partially awaken. Such a view is in tone with the 
 general purpose of this paper. The ogre or giant who 
 eats children is thus a reality to them, for their ancestors 
 dwelt for unnumbered centuries among such fearful 
 possibilities. The very character of women, with their 
 powerful, but half-hidden, insistence on success, could 
 thus perhaps be traced, without the idea seeming over- 
 fantastic, to the times of ancient famine when their 
 children had, perhaps, to fear most their natural pro- 
 tector, even, it may be, the mother herself. It is, indeed, 
 far from unlikely that it was the women who urged on 
 their father and husband to the capture and slaughter 
 of his enemies, and his own fear, as I hope to show, may 
 be held up as the one great cause of his sullen co-operation 
 with his sons in such expeditions, enforced and enjoined 
 upon him, though it may have been, by some favourite 
 woman who was apprehensive of disaster to her young 
 offspring. 
 
 To return from these relevant deductions to the 
 parental jealousy complex still showing itself in modern 
 times, it seems that many such ancient social states must 
 have perpetuated themselves in mental complexes which 
 still influence human action. They are but examples 
 of the ceaseless working of energy ever and ever in weaker
 
 158 
 
 but more delicate structures. So, in the growth of the 
 nervous system, embryonic cells, capable of development 
 into muscle cells which use great energy, were, if we may 
 use the metaphor in physiology, sublimated into nerve 
 cells, which consume so little that it cannot be measured 
 by any means yet known to us. But, just as we know 
 that neurons arose from ruder and more energy-con- 
 suming structures, we can infer that, though the finer 
 and more delicate instincts of modern man were developed 
 from rude and brutal ones, they still retain marks of their 
 origin. Nor need we be surprised to find even now in 
 such a lowly organism as society, which lies far down 
 the developmental scale, obvious or gross indications of 
 their origin. With this support, and the coincidence of 
 Atkinson's views with those otherwise deduced, some 
 progress may be made in the consideration of the con- 
 ditions and factors which changed the ancient typical 
 family of the father, his wives and daughters, and the 
 children of both, into the tribe. In such an investigation 
 it will not be necessary to go into later developments, 
 such as matriarchy, which were probably due to special, 
 perhaps local, causes. 
 
 It is the common accepted opinion that tribes grew 
 directly from the family which co-operated as an ever- 
 enlarging unit, and afterwards subdivided. Such a view 
 as much ignores the political phenomena of history, even 
 of to-day, as it does the many sidelights which ancient 
 custom throws upon the processes in question. When 
 any opinion is based upon little evidence it often turns 
 out that the effect is mistaken for the cause, or the cause 
 for the effect. It may, perhaps, be shown that some- 
 thing like this has occurred in the conclusions based upon 
 the classificatory system of relationship and inter-tribal
 
 THE CANNIBAL IN EVOLUTION 159 
 
 customs, known chiefly to us by what is seen among the 
 Australian aborigines. In order to show as clearly as 
 possible what the orthodox view seems to be, I may quote 
 Frazer (Folklore in the Old Testament). After speaking 
 of the exogamous classes of a tribe as always two, four, 
 or eight, but never an odd number, he says : " This 
 suggests, what all the evidence tends to confirm, that these 
 various groups have been produced by the deliberate 
 and repeated bisection of a community, first into two, 
 then into four, and finally into eight exogamous and 
 intermarrying groups or classes, for no one, so far as I 
 know, has yet ventured to maintain that society is subject 
 to a physical law, in virtue of which communities, like 
 crystals, tend automatically and unconsciously to in- 
 tegrate or disintegrate, along rigid mathematical lines, 
 into exactly symmetrical units. . . . The evidence points 
 to the conclusion that the dual organization or division 
 of a community into two exogamous and intermarrying 
 classes was introduced for the purpose of preventing the 
 marriage of brothers with sisters." 
 
 Leaving aside for a moment the concluding sentence 
 of this judgment with the remark that it might just as 
 well be argued that the Table of Affinities was introduced 
 to prevent the marriage of a deceased wife's sister to her 
 brother-in-law, and noting that abstract ideas, such as 
 incest, must follow, not precede, practice grown into 
 rigid " moral " custom, it may be remarked that if the 
 inheritance of Mendelian characters follows exactly upon 
 the laws of probability, we may reasonably assume that 
 physical laws, however altered from their primal sim- 
 plicity, rule in all departments or planes of life. The 
 words " deliberate and repeated " in the above paragraph 
 certainly call for scrutiny. As we observe that all political
 
 160 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 integration, or its opposite, follows inevitably upon causes 
 which can be analysed into physical elements, racial, 
 geographical, or economic, and that the element of 
 deliberate purpose imagined to exist in politicians is the 
 final result of the thrust of the energy behind them which 
 they voice, it seems hardly likely that such action can be 
 attributed to the prehistoric tribes of Australia. As I 
 happen to know them I am far from underrating their 
 intelligence, which, taking into consideration their con- 
 ditions, is far higher than is generally supposed; but to 
 believe them capable of performing such a moral and 
 political feat as Frazer suggests is to outrage all prob- 
 ability. Communities are certainly not like crystals, 
 and the importation of such a simile is in the nature of a 
 rhetorical argument, which assumes in an opponent opinions 
 to which he would never subscribe. But quite indepen- 
 dent of any conclusion which, as its basis, takes for granted 
 the facts of division, and then argues that it must have 
 been deliberate, there is the ignored hypothesis that 
 division never took place at all, but that what did occur 
 was aggregation or integration. Since I put aside as 
 untenable on the face of it, in view of our knowledge of 
 the working of the human brain shown in the descent 
 and progression of abstract notions, the theory that 
 incest, as horrible or even undesirable on some real or 
 fancied ground of eugenics or innate morality, can have 
 anything to do with such phenomena, and that therefore 
 division is much more than exceedingly unlikely, we are 
 forced to consider whether, on a totally opposite hypothesis, 
 political integration did not take place for reasons which 
 may be discovered, or at least suggested, by considering 
 facts it explains, or by parallels in the history of our own 
 or other countries. Such facts and such parallels are
 
 THE CANNIBAL IN EVOLUTION 161 
 
 easily discoverable, and as regards the last any European 
 war has shown that pressure of circumstances tends to 
 integration, often temporary, but sometimes permanent. 
 An alliance, in the face of danger between races often 
 deeply opposed through the operation of racial, geo- 
 graphical, or economic factors, if both are exposed to a 
 common danger, is obviously of common occurrence. 
 In such conditions ancient differences are hastily com- 
 posed, compromised, or postponed, and a united front is 
 shown to the enemy. These facts are too common and 
 intelligible to need insistence ; but it may be pointed out 
 that on final analysis the like are in all essentials ex- 
 hibited in the enforced behaviour of animals. The dogs 
 of a village which are usually hostile to each other will 
 unite to attack an invading dog. Groups of cattle which 
 never graze together will ring round a centre and oppose 
 together a prowling beast of prey. Many more instances 
 might be cited; but the study of history itself is more 
 than sufficient to show that union is never voluntary, but 
 always enforced, while the fundamental hostility of groups 
 is still seen even in English village communities, which 
 fight when they meet, or enliven their hours of ease with 
 jests at the expense of their neighbours, though they 
 become, upon national stress, patriots and friends. But 
 as there is no need to labour this point, it may be asked 
 whether the hypothesis that the classificatory system of 
 relationship and marriage, remnants of which are visible 
 in all nations, cannot be explained by enforced integration 
 rather than by division. Such an explanation will enable 
 us to understand and classify many hitherto inexplicable 
 and obscure phenomena in tribal organization, custom, 
 and morality. 
 
 Since anthropologists, or those interested in anthro- 
 ii
 
 162 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 pology, must be more or less familiar with the facts of 
 cannibalism, there is no need to enter into a prolonged 
 enumeration of its phenomena which are not yet co- 
 ordinated. In preference to otiose repetition I shall 
 therefore examine a few of the more remarkable customs 
 connected with anthropophagism, for, if any solution can 
 be obtained of them, many, if not all, of the remaining 
 details will fall into their place automatically. Premising, 
 then, that it is admitted there is sufficient evidence to 
 assume provisionally that cannibalism is a stage through 
 which early mankind has passed, it may be asked how it is 
 that in certain Australian tribes, such as the Binbinga, 
 the two classes eat, not their own, but each other's dead. 
 In many other cases, according to Spencer and Gillen, it is 
 suspected that the same custom obtains. It seems, how- 
 ever, as might have been prophesied, that those who are 
 eaten are never, or very rarely, of the same totems as those 
 who eat them. Such a custom is totally unintelligible on 
 the division theory, and remains, as it were, a mere morbid 
 degeneration such as some see in all cannibalism. Although 
 many variations in man-eating must inevitably occur as 
 totemism and tribal organization decay, what is to be 
 sought is the origin of this peculiar custom, and if any 
 hypothesis suggests it, the explanation should have solid 
 foundations. 
 
 If the original patriarchal family was such, or nearly 
 such, as Atkinson pictured it, and as I myself drew it, it 
 can be seen how the single one-class, and single-totemed, 
 group came into being. As said before, there is no need 
 to follow Atkinson in his hypothesis that maternal love 
 overcame the hostility of the brutal father and chief, for 
 in such times and conditions as those which made the 
 environment of nascent mankind, it is safer to infer that
 
 THE CANNIBAL IN EVOLUTION 163 
 
 the changes were the result of stress of circumstance rather 
 than of instincts, however beautiful, which in all primitive 
 peoples tend to exert less and less power as the offspring 
 become able to take care of themselves. In conditions, 
 which even for the partially protected female were such 
 as must have employed all her energy to live, they would 
 have had little force. 
 
 Although the explanation of the past by what occurs 
 now is sound in all sciences, such an instrument of discovery, 
 when it uses not permanent physical causes, like those 
 seen in geology, but evolved and evolving multiform factors 
 such as the instincts, needs some caution. While the 
 purely self-regarding and brutal instincts still seen in 
 many must even so be regarded as modified favourably 
 during social evolution, it may be assumed that the more 
 altruistic were in their origin less worthy of admiration 
 than they seem now. It is therefore more probable that 
 outside stress, rather than maternally introduced modi- 
 fications, conditioned the changes by which the sons were 
 permitted to stay in some sort of growing communion 
 with their parents, although avoidance was still strict, and 
 exogamy, or marriage by capture, from other nascent 
 groups or tribes, absolutely obligatory. 
 
 With the existence of families in such proximity as 
 permitted wife capture it follows that, owing to the very 
 custom of capture, some kind of relationship should have 
 grown up. Even if the capture of wives were associated 
 at other times with the capture of prisoners, or carrying off 
 the dead for food, there would assuredly be intervals of 
 peace and comparative amity in seasons of plentiful game. 
 Although such friendly relations must have been slight 
 they would certainly be stronger than those with other 
 and remoter groups with whom no intermarriage was
 
 164 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 possible, and who were at all times regarded purely as 
 enemies. It is very interesting to note that though Maine 
 obviously knew nothing of the Australian classificatory 
 system he yet remarks : " The history of political ideas 
 begins, in fact, with the assumption that kinship in blood 
 is the sole possible ground of community in political 
 functions ; nor is there any of those subversions of feeling 
 which we term emphatically revolutions, so startling and 
 so complete as the change which is accomplished when 
 some other principle, such as that, for instance, of local 
 contiguity, establishes itself for the first time as a basis 
 of common political action. . . . The earliest and most 
 extensively employed of legal fictions was that which per- 
 mitted family relations to be established artificially, and 
 there is none to which I conceive mankind to be more 
 deeply indebted " (H. S. Maine, Ancient Law, 1905, 
 pp. 129, 130). It may be noted, of course, that the two 
 groups, which I conceive as becoming one tribe under 
 external pressure, are locally contiguous and obviously 
 blood relations, however bitterly hostile. If during a period 
 of scarcity, distant and dreaded foes made an incursion 
 into territory in which the less hostile groups were situated, 
 there would be the strongest motive possible for at least a 
 temporary alliance. If it is objected that the inter-group 
 relations of marriage would not compensate for the hatred 
 aroused by cannibalism, it must be remembered, ex hypo- 
 thesi, that this was a state of things perfectly customary, 
 and not in any sense outrageous. There was then no such 
 thing as a moral horror of the practice. If such an alliance 
 took place, and was partially successful, it would tend to 
 continue, especially if the remodelling stress of the more 
 hated foe still remained as fear " in being." It is natural 
 enough to deduce from this that such a state of things
 
 THE CANNIBAL IN EVOLUTION 165 
 
 would necessarily alter cannibalism between the allied 
 groups, while necessity, combined with customary habit, 
 would end in the practice of eating each other's dead, 
 rather than in a continuance of former customs. On this 
 hypothesis such habits as those of the Binbinga are per- 
 fectly intelligible ; it is seen how they came about, and, 
 by customary inertia, were continued. Although there is 
 no necessity to enter into the vexed question of totemism, 
 it may be assumed that in each familial group there was 
 already some such name badge, whatever its origin and 
 whatever it may have developed into later, when magic, 
 myth, and tradition moulded and welded the tribe into its 
 later form. There would be then a tribe of two classes, 
 mutually exogamous, each class with a totem. And if 
 such a hypothesis is admitted as possible, then on further 
 pressure of war, induced as war practically always is by 
 economic conditions, however much disguised in modern 
 times, the transition from a two-class tribe to a four- or 
 eight-class tribe actually explains itself. There would be 
 in the latter case eight totem classes, whose ancient law 
 sanctioned intermarriage with one other totem class only, 
 while any intercourse between the rest of the classes, though 
 at first conditioned mainly by jealousy, would gradually 
 become tribal morality, and a safeguard to tribal unity. 
 
 On this hypothesis there is no compulsion to posit 
 advanced abstract notions as a driving force, a conception 
 contrary to logic and the nature of language as well as to 
 the established fact that progression is from the concrete 
 to the abstract, and not vice versa. Moreover such a theory, 
 for if it unravels the meaning of so difficult a case as that 
 of the Binbinga it becomes more than a hypothesis, is in 
 accordance with processes to-day, while it explains modern 
 sex morality as the last, but assuredly not enduring,
 
 166 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 remains of a tremendous and rigid code whose sanction 
 was not merely the fear of slander or social ostracism, 
 but that of death. 
 
 However disagreeable the conclusion may seem to many, 
 even the positive evidence obtainable is suggestive of 
 universal cannibalism. The fact that it still exists in 
 many quarters of the globe, and may be returned to any- 
 where under stress, vastly strengthens such evidence. 
 Abhorrent as it is to the modern mind, no one knows what 
 he will do on occasions of which he has no experience. I 
 once camped in the Selkirks, in British Columbia, with 
 an old prospector known as the Man-Eater, because, when 
 snowed-up and starving in the mountains, he had dug up 
 his partner's frozen body, which he had previously buried. 
 The potential cannibal may in fact exist in the most re- 
 fined, and it is not illegitimate to conclude that the habit 
 was once universal, and resulted in continued economic 
 war. To such factors may be attributed the continual 
 coalescence of many hostile tribes, who compromised 
 again and yet again with enemy after enemy, and in the 
 process established the earlier real societies, the germs of 
 nations and of races. The unknown is still the horrible, 
 and it was better to make friends with tribes near at hand 
 whose customs were at least familiar, than to be conquered 
 by dreadful far-off people, who might overthrow law and 
 lay morality in the dust. What morals, indeed, were to be 
 expected from such ? Magic itself might be in danger ! 
 
 From a purely physiological point of view it may be 
 suggested that as character is modified or intensified by 
 special foods, containing special catalysts or toxins which 
 act as determinants, a custom like cannibalism may have 
 altered human character itself by ensuring a common 
 average stock of such determining elements. We are
 
 THE CANNIBAL IN EVOLUTION 167 
 
 even yet wholly ignorant of the evolutionary effects of 
 acute diseases which are recovered from ; but it cannot 
 be imagined they have none. Their toxins by eventually 
 producing immunity must certainly be a factor of change 
 in a race, as they must be factors in the after life of the 
 individual. It may be said that when tuberculosis was 
 first active as a destructive and modifying agent, prob- 
 ably at the beginning of the pastoral ages when man 
 first domesticated cattle, a very powerful factor of physical 
 and cerebral change was introduced. If that is even 
 remotely possible, it cannot be believed that cannibalism 
 had not many obscure side effects, over and above that 
 of intensifying the struggle for existence. 
 
 Organized war in itself, though it is a subject which 
 has employed so many minds, has rarely been considered 
 as a very ancient factor in evolution. We may take it for 
 granted that it did not originate in the mere love of fighting. 
 The joy of conflict is assuredly a by-product of superfluous 
 energy, and even now much rarer than is assumed in 
 romance. Yet if the temporary sullen alliance of some 
 early prehistoric men, in periods possibly late Miocene 
 in date, was the very beginning of tribal unity, and if their 
 joint efforts procured success against a common enemy 
 of both, we are entitled to call such an expedition the 
 very beginning of organized war, as distinguished from 
 solitary hunting, and the origin of immense evolutionary 
 changes. So far as I am aware, though man's intellectual 
 advance has been frequently attributed to his hunting 
 proclivities, as calling forth qualities advantageous to 
 him who was successful, and thus aiding his survival, 
 while inter-tribal warfare is no doubt recognized as a factor 
 of his progress, the reasons usually assigned for such war- 
 fare are the tolerably obvious ones still displayed among
 
 168 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 savage peoples as regards hunting areas. A French writer, 
 Toussenel, who has discoursed on the part played by dogs 
 as co-hunters with man, has, indeed, attributed the origin of 
 cannibalism to a by-effect of the chase. He says (L 'Esprit 
 des Betes, 1847) : " U est evident que 1'anthropophagie 
 est nee d'une excessive fringale combinee avec 1'habitude 
 du regime du viande. II arriva que deux hordes de chas- 
 seurs se recontrerent a la poursuite du meme animal, un 
 jour que la proie etait rare and que la faim mugissait dans 
 leur entrailles, et il eut guerre entre elles. On se battit, 
 on se tua et les cadavres de vaincus remplacerent natur- 
 ellement au foyers des vainqueurs les cadavres du gibier 
 absent." Such opinions may, perhaps, be somewhat 
 suggestive, but the attribution of cannibalism to the merest 
 accident is most certainly not sound. Toussenel thought 
 that it followed tribal organization and hunting in parties ; 
 but such organization has to be accounted for, not assumed 
 as natural. Nor can we take it for granted that warfare 
 arose of itself without some very definite and powerful 
 cause among our very early ancestors, for though social 
 animals fight among themselves, they never organize 
 against other groups of the same species. Real organiza- 
 tion for warfare, therefore, seems peculiar to man and some 
 ants who have reached a very high stage as societies with 
 great differentiation of function. Although imagination 
 has a great part to play in speculation, when explanation 
 is wanting and data are necessarily few such hypotheses 
 as are invented must at least account for fundamental 
 facts, and the view that tribal organization preceded 
 cannibalism practically leaves out of account such pheno- 
 mena as those of the Binbinga and others, which were 
 probably as unknown to Toussenel as they seem to be to 
 many modern writers on allied subjects.
 
 THE CANNIBAL IN EVOLUTION 169 
 
 It has been argued by Harry Campbell and others, 
 as I myself argued twenty-five years ago, that inter-tribal 
 warfare, in which all members of the tribe were engaged, 
 must have meant the rapid elimination of fools and the 
 unfit ; but so far it seems that it has not been pointed out 
 that the acts of war, whether tactical or strategic, tend 
 to develop all the logical and mental faculties of man. 
 Every human faculty has assuredly been called into exist- 
 ence by the stimulation of the environment. It does not 
 follow that every stimulation has brought out power to 
 deal directly with the situation. But it has certainly 
 developed powers of avoiding possible evil results, thus 
 moulding the race in another way. Certainly no faculty 
 can be conceived existing without need unless there is 
 in existence excess energy not wanted for self- or race- 
 preservation. For there are undoubtedly developments 
 not in themselves really useful. We cannot logically 
 attribute the gorgeous colouring of the Trochilidas purely 
 to sex selection, when we see the less gorgeous species still 
 highly adorned. We are forced to look on such super- 
 coloration as the result of excess energy in birds already 
 so energetic as to be almost beyond the ordinary accidents 
 of bird life, while they live on the most assimilable form 
 of carbohydrate. Such excess of adornment may in the 
 end become harmful to them, as it has done since debauched 
 destructive energy in rich women has demanded their 
 sacrifice for adornment. But if all useful faculties in 
 man, or any animal, must have been developed by the 
 stimulation of the environment we can, I think, conceive 
 no such stimulation as that of individual, group, and tribal 
 warfare for the purpose of obtaining the food which is the 
 most nourishing, and the most easily digestible of all. 
 Since it has already been humanized, it calls for less energy
 
 170 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 to transform it into body-building or energizing factors. 
 The very belief that eating other warriors gave the vic- 
 torious their qualities, may easily enough have developed 
 from the fact that such a meal showed a marked difference 
 in results from those experienced with other foods. But 
 the main point to bear in mind is that warfare with objects 
 of this kind in view must have had not only very definite 
 results in cerebral growth, but also very rapid ones. After 
 a long period in which man was, perhaps, little more 
 developed than Pithecantheopus erectus, such enforced 
 organization, in groups which could develop subordina- 
 tion, and respect for ability in leaders, with the rapid 
 concomitant destruction of less plastic anthropoid stocks 
 of all kinds, must have resulted not only in the elimination 
 of most of the ground apes, while the monkeys were able 
 to preserve themselves, but also in a period of rapid pro- 
 gression in adaptability and cerebral development. Races 
 may have arisen perfectly capable of slow progression 
 to a status even higher than that of modern man, but if 
 they lacked the enforced cohesion of those who had eaten 
 up their hunting areas, and were finally driven into united 
 internecine warfare to obtain food, or prisoners who could 
 be slaves or food as necessity dictated, they would have 
 had no more chance against intrusive voracious hordes 
 with gross simian characteristics than Greece had against 
 the armies of Philip. There are even suggestions in what 
 we know of early human history which point, however 
 vaguely, towards such unrecorded tragedies. 
 
 Among them, perhaps, may be reckoned that of the 
 disappearance of such a species of humanity as Neander- 
 thal man. His brain capacity of about 1600 c.c. ; while 
 that of modern man is, say, 1400 c.c., is even more superior 
 than it seems to that of the average European of the
 
 THE CANNIBAL IN EVOLUTION 171 
 
 present time, as his average height was less (5' 4"). His 
 inferior stature may, perhaps, have been compensated 
 for by greater weight, so that the portion of the brain 
 devoted entirely to bodily functions, and not to intellectual 
 qualities, may be rather more than that indicated. Yet 
 here was a species of man, distinct from our own type by 
 the possession of simian characters which are not ours, and 
 the absence of some which we still retain, who had a 
 greater brain than the average modern man. According 
 to Keith, the teeth of this species are of the taurodont 
 type seen in herbivorous or graminivorous animals. " On 
 the evidence of the teeth and palate one is inclined to 
 regard Neanderthal man as specially adapted to live on 
 a rough vegetable diet. . . . His skill as a flint artizan 
 shows that his abilities were not of a low order. He had 
 fire at his command, he buried his dead, he had a dis- 
 tinctive and highly evolved form of culture." In spite 
 of this culture, and the structure of the teeth, it is said 
 that he was also a hunter, which is held to be proved by 
 the remains found in the Krapina cave. He has indeed 
 been accused of cannibalism, as split human bones were 
 found with other scattered Neanderthal bones and teeth. 
 The evidence is assuredly not altogether convincing, but 
 it excites speculation, especially as the implements, though 
 not typically Mousterian, certainly suggest that culture. 
 May it not be said that if cannibalism there was, it must 
 be ascribed, not to a typically vegetarian race, but to 
 the contemporary ancestors of modern man, who have 
 descendants practising it ? In any case, whether such 
 a hypothesis is regarded as mere fancy or real suggestion, 
 the fact remains that a powerful and highly cultured 
 race, which was obviously graminivorous and had prob- 
 ably reached the agricultural stage, with a cranial capacity
 
 172 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 not possessed by every philosopher of the present day, 
 has vanished from the face of the earth, leaving no 
 descendants and few traces of his existence. Such a 
 problem cannot be disposed of easily. At the least it 
 must excite the suspicion that his place was occupied by 
 the ancestors of those who at one stage of civilization 
 practised cannibalism, and in all devoted infinite energy 
 to organized warfare. Vegetarianism is not likely to 
 have been practised by those with teeth not peculiarly 
 or typically adapted to such food, and it therefore seems 
 quite possible that Neanderthal man was wiped out by 
 swarms of a less advanced but more military race of 
 cannibals. These speculations have at any rate the 
 support afforded by such factors of evolution being in 
 action even now, and if the hypothesis is correct, they 
 must have been operating from a date some time after 
 the anthropoid stock had divided into the lost species 
 and that which even yet exists and, in many parts of the 
 earth, still indulges in man-eating. 
 
 When considering the past effects of war upon the 
 human races it may be urged that the typical soldier, 
 even now, is the finest type of all-round man. This 
 will no doubt seem a hard saying to those morbid 
 intellectuals who overrate conscious mentation. Never- 
 theless, many who are prejudiced by the possession of 
 an under-exercised body, and an over-exercised cerebral 
 cortex, will probably agree that the all-round type of able 
 and athletic man is the finest form of humanity. Not 
 a few of those who belong to the higher intellectual order 
 must often lament their own overgrowths and correlated 
 incapacities when they contemplate his simple, healthy, 
 and beautiful efficiency. It may be i~ne that progress 
 did not stop when fighting ceased to be the greatest factor
 
 THE CANNIBAL IN EVOLUTION 173 
 
 in evolution, although, judging from the evidence it looks 
 as if changes were more socially structural than cerebral. 
 Yet even now we can say that the best officers in a good 
 modern army belong to a fine order of compact, sufficient 
 intellect. War still requires that equal balance of the 
 body and brain which characterizes them, although they 
 may want some qualities which in themselves are scarcely 
 more than prophetic of possible future race characteristics. 
 It is not necessary to go deeply into cerebral physio- 
 logy or psychology to see that war required the develop- 
 ment of all the main faculties characterizing the human 
 brain. There is no common faculty useful in life which 
 is not necessary to the soldier considered only as such. 
 War is a great intellectual and bodily game, in which the 
 incomplete man goes under. The soldier has to reason, 
 and must reason rapidly, his intuitions must outrun the 
 processes of formal thought. To say so by no means 
 implies that he should be acquainted with the syllogistic 
 skeleton of human reasoning. Men argued in natural 
 moods before scholastic logic, as they still argue without 
 having heard of it. The early warriors organized brain 
 tracts which grasped more and more factors in the en- 
 vironment ; their skill and their salvation depended on 
 new and ready response to new or old stimuli. Such 
 brain faculties are capable of being developed and organized 
 in a measure by hunting, but hunting alone, as we under- 
 stand it, could not have put the last fine edge upon the 
 brain as a weapon, nor would it have eliminated with any 
 rapidity the small-brained races which were incapable 
 of swift variation. Nothing but war would have been 
 so likely to bring out all those qualities which reward 
 skill, quickness, endurance, foresight, and the concentra- 
 tion of endeavour with the crown of victory and the
 
 174 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 inheritance of the earth. Thus it does not seem a vain 
 imagination or a mere unsupported hypothesis to consider 
 the early warrior's brain as the type from which all our 
 still unstable new developments have naturally grown. 
 The savage who was most a savage, who was the fiercest, 
 the most ruthless, who was most endowed with cunning, 
 and who yet had a faint sense of loyalty within his brain, 
 which made him capable of being led or leading in his 
 turn, was the true fountain of progress, of knowledge, and 
 ultimately of those finer cortical growths which some 
 metaphysicians and all religionists prefer to call " the 
 soul." We must look to the lowest man-eating tribes 
 who yet remain if we wish to see ourselves somewhat as 
 we were when mankind first rose from the Miocene abyss. 
 
 Though these conclusions are disagreeable to many, 
 while others think that it is straining an hypothesis beyond 
 the limits of elasticity to reach them, it must be remembered 
 that like objections are still urged against conclusions, as 
 to the formation of human individual and racial cerebral 
 characteristics, reached in psycho-analysis. These militate 
 against curious concepts, such as Free Will, which are 
 peculiarly dear to many, while they show that the origin 
 of some of the sublimer feelings lies deep in the savage 
 passions of self-regarding instincts. To attribute every- 
 thing to cannibalism, without complete analysis of the 
 way it operated, would be indeed a strain, but if it can be 
 shown with plausibility that out of the practice of war 
 there sprang, whether on Darwinian grounds purely, 
 or on those which suggest that direct environmental 
 adaptation can be inherited, such higher attributes of man 
 as foresight, caution, subordination, respect for leader- 
 ship, and other's mental endowments, while the whole 
 basis of the organizing tribes substituted reason, which is
 
 THE CANNIBAL IN EVOLUTION 175 
 
 the power of balancing possibilities, for purely savage 
 instinctive action, we have a right, not only to conclude 
 that cannibalism was an immense, even the greatest, 
 factor of early evolution, but that we are no more justified 
 in regarding it with peculiar disfavour than if we dis- 
 covered with horror that the singular energy in doing 
 good of some saintly woman had its origin in frustrate, 
 sublimated sexual passion. 
 
 Moreover, if the conclusions arrived at in the chapter 
 on the function of Repair in Evolution have any weight, 
 we are forced to assume that such phenomena as failure 
 and repair leading to favourable variation must occur 
 in the realm of anthropology as well as in pathology and 
 physiology. The more the theory is examined the more 
 universal will be seen its operation, so that at last it seems 
 legitimate to draw the conclusion that physiology in the 
 sense of perfected action and reaction is an ideal of living 
 structure, and no sooner seen that lost, while a morbid 
 or semi-morbid condition due to over-stress and the 
 reactions of repair, is the true norm in evolution. If this is 
 so, and few capable of taking a scientific and philosophical 
 view of society as now seen in the melting-pot of change, 
 disaster, repair, and again disaster and new trials and errors 
 as modifications take place under internal and external 
 stresses and stimuli, will be found to deny it, we may take 
 it for granted that the still vaster modifications of various 
 species of humanity in the ages of geologic time must have 
 exhibited like phenomena on a lower plane, in which the 
 furious self-regarding instincts had not yet been changed, 
 or only partly changed, into some of the higher attributes 
 of man. When in imagination we regard such possible 
 factors at work, the picture seems one of unmitigated 
 misery, or social disease and disorder. Yet even then there
 
 176 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 were working factors making blindly for balance and sym- 
 metry, for easy action rather than difficult, for peace 
 rather than war. Indeed, the most appalling comment 
 to be made on such a state of nascent society is not that 
 it was so peculiarly dreadful, or that it puts a strain on 
 the imagination to conceive it, but that after long ages we 
 see similar factors but little altered still at their work. 
 Peace conferences have their ancient analogues and, as 
 great diplomatists argued round Pliocene camp-fires, 
 so, when Paris itself lies under the sea, other diplomatists 
 will even then debate on ancient premisses, while 
 idealistic, contemporary historians throw doubts on the 
 recorded savagery of extinct Europeans. 
 
 If the whole of this volume were not in the nature of 
 a plea for the use of the imagination in science, so long as 
 it is controlled by ascertained results in allied branches 
 of learning, I might have hesitated to use such arguments 
 or illustrations. But when there are problems to solve, 
 in which few if any direct observations can be made, and 
 in which documents are rare, it is necessary to employ 
 some such method as that known in mathematics as the 
 Inverse Problem of Perturbations. Uninterpreted altera- 
 tions in the orbit of one or more planets lead to the dis- 
 covery of another almost beyond the reach of the telescope. 
 If, indeed, Neptune had never been seen, the facts as to 
 its orbit and distance from the sun would have been almost 
 certain. Such a case presents striking analogies with 
 investigation into prehistoric times. We observe the 
 inexplicable present, and infer an adequate cause. If the 
 present view suggested no more than a possible explana- 
 tion of the remarkable change from such as Pithecanth- 
 ropus to the modern type of brain which, following 
 Keith, I believe to be of very early origin, it would, at
 
 THE CANNIBAL IN EVOLUTION 177 
 
 least be something. Yet Keith himself says : " Can we 
 conceive that, in the stretch of time between the end of 
 the Pliocene and the middle of the Pleistocene, even allow- 
 ing two or three hundred thousand years for that space, 
 the brain of Pithecanthropus could have evolved into the 
 modern human form ? I cannot conceive such a rapid 
 rate of evolution." While by no means of the opinion that 
 Pithecanthropus was a human ancestor, for it appears 
 far more likely that he was a collateral survival if pro- 
 perly dated, it seems to me that by the operation of the 
 combined factors suggested such a rapid change might, 
 and indeed must, have taken place. If there is one thing 
 more sure than another, it is that stability of type 
 indicates a more or less stable environment. From the 
 historic view changes may be rapid, while from the physio- 
 logical and anthropological standpoint they seem too 
 negligible to be considered moulding influences. That 
 very ancient types still survive is not really a relevant 
 argument against a rapid critical period of change, unless 
 we can show that such a static condition has continued 
 through immense physical changes of the environment. 
 The partially obsolete Darwinian view of a slow aggregation 
 of minute advantageous spontaneous variations seems still 
 partly responsible for the opinion that change must neces- 
 sarily be slow. But in many states of matter they are often 
 rapid, and it cannot be shown definitely that evolution is 
 steady and continuous. Like the colloids of protoplasm, 
 on which all life finally depends, it seems to have critical 
 periods. Colloidal substances are easily influenced by 
 obscure stimuli. The origin of life as a sudden rise in the 
 organization of matter may have depended on a partic- 
 ular instance of ionization or the powerful influence of a 
 rare accidental catalyst. Planck's very theory of Quanta
 
 178 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 itself suggests sudden steps in all phenomena what- 
 soever, and in the presence of such a protoplasmic cerebral 
 tool, or catalyst, as the early discovery of cannibalism, I 
 find no difficulty whatever in considering it as the last 
 great cause of a sudden critical change in man. Alien as 
 such methods of thought may seem to pure specialists in 
 anthropology, they may prove suggestive to those of the 
 opinion that analogous phenomena are found in all planes 
 of evolutionary progress. Universal cannibalism must at 
 the least be accepted, if accepted at all, as a possible instru- 
 ment of rapid critical change, seeing that both as an elimi- 
 nant and an integrator no more powerful machinery can be 
 imagined. To say that its discovery as a motive for tribal 
 integration may have been the work of some solitary old 
 male genius, or the visionary [glimpse, by some extruded 
 exceptionally endowed youth, of a means of common 
 safety, imparted by him to his young brother and thence 
 to his mother, who urged it on her man whose savage 
 passions were already failing, may seem extravagant, but 
 the notion will not appear so absurd if we remember that 
 the thought of a relatively lofty brain is often the heritage 
 of the best in succeeding generations, the common property 
 of the herd in those that succeed, and that in the end it 
 may be indistingishable from criminal and atavistic con- 
 cepts. It may, and must, have been an infraction of 
 custom, but, though for the ordinary man in any era there 
 is little to choose between the habitual criminal and the 
 habitual genius, necessity reinforced the suggestion, and 
 made havoc of established law. Yet such new co-ordination 
 would not be carried to its logical conclusion without the 
 revolt of the more conservative element. It is, indeed, 
 a peculiar and somewhat melancholy commentary on the 
 perpetually recurring phenomena of social and human
 
 THE CANNIBAL IN EVOLUTION 179 
 
 advance to view in imagination many a rigid and ethically- 
 set incestuous solitary male retiring indignantly before 
 the flood of immoral innovation into the darkest backwoods 
 of the primeval forest. Had he been capable of such 
 reasoning, he would have regarded the processes which led to 
 progress and the evolution of the brain man now possesses 
 as essentially anarchic, morbid, and diseased, just as the 
 over-conservative mind of modern times regards the rise 
 of new powers and processes in social polity as tending to 
 the death of the organism of which it is a static and satisfied 
 part. It is, then, no fanciful analogy which suggests that 
 politics are but a chapter in anthropology, and that the 
 processes seen in both are mutually illuminating. We may 
 infer that as such new forces exhaust themselves in altered 
 or adapted or entirely new structures, which in their turn 
 must pass away, cannibalism itself died out among the races 
 we call civilized when organization had reached such a 
 pitch that the labours of pastoralism or agriculture pro- 
 mised earlier and better results than predatory war. A 
 balance of power, continually upset and restored, came into 
 existence, and the developing germ of international law 
 or custom took on new forms. We can thus conceive 
 Grotius and his followers as the lineal descendants of the 
 first ancient inter-group messengers, or at the least derived 
 from the calmer philosophers at the first peace conference 
 
 
 
 ever held about some long-extinguished camp-fire over 
 which the retreating ice of successive glacial epochs has 
 poured its floods. 
 
 It seems not altogether impossible that this hypothesis 
 may be confirmed by the aid of another branch of science. 
 Some years ago it was suggested by an eminent zoologist, 
 one of the few to whom knowledge has not meant special- 
 ism, that the evolution of Tcenia solium supported such
 
 180 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 views. Since it can hardly be supposed that this parasite 
 has reached its present perfect adaptation within the 
 period which has elapsed since the domestication of the 
 pig, which implies a settled or, certainly, less migratory 
 state of civilization, it follows that the cystic form of 
 Tcenia must have alternated with the adult form in the 
 one other form of life in which such a stage is possible, 
 that is to say, in man himself. As I have not applied myself 
 to the study of helminthology it was impossible for me to 
 say whether this view was sound or not, and as the 
 advocate of the hypothesis did not reprint the paper, I 
 had an application made to him for his considered opinion. 
 When this was not vouchsafed I requested information 
 from a well-known helminthologist, who replied that he 
 himself knew nothing of the subject, and therefore referred 
 me to another authority, who in his turn gave me the 
 name of yet another, who finally referred me to the first. 
 It seems that, whatever is known of these parasites, 
 their evolution has not yet been properly considered, 
 and it may yet appear that it proves the universal and 
 long-continued practice of anthropophagy. 
 
 On recapitulating the arguments advanced, though 
 each one separately may appear unconvincing and even 
 capable of rebuttal, it seems that when viewed together 
 they amount to much more than might have been 
 expected. Even a partial enumeration of the points 
 discussed may suggest reasonable explanation of the 
 following difficulties : 
 
 1. The classificatory system of relationship. 
 
 2. The custom of avoidance and the sex-coldness 
 among brothers and sisters. 
 
 3. The not uncommon modern phenomenon of 
 parental jealousy.
 
 THE CANNIBAL IN EVOLUTION 181 
 
 4. The widespread modern practice of cannibalism 
 in all its various forms, food-seeking, honorific, and re- 
 ligious, etc. etc. 
 
 5. The peculiar practice of endo-anthropophagy which 
 consists in each class of a tribe eating the dead of the 
 other class. 
 
 6. The rapid change in cranial form and capacity 
 during a comparatively short time. 
 
 7. The development of the basal logical faculties of 
 man. 
 
 8. The disappearance of a big-brained and probably 
 agricultural species of humanity such as Neanderthal 
 man, and the facts observed at Krapina. 
 
 9. The evolutionary functions of war. 
 
 10. The nature of hidden racial complexes strictly 
 analogous with those observed in individuals. 
 
 REFERENCES. 
 
 CAMPBELL, HARRY. " Biological Aspects of Warfare," Lancet, 
 London, Sept. 15, 1917 ; and " Man's Mental Evolution, 
 Past and Future," ibid., London, 1913. 
 
 FRASER, Sir J. G. "Totemism and Exogamy." 
 
 KEITH, ARTHUR. "Antiquity of Man," 1916. 
 
 MAINE, Sir H. S. "Ancient Law" (ed. Pollock), 1903. 
 
 SPENCER and GILLEN. " Native Tribes of Central Australia." 
 
 TOUSSENEL. "L'Esprit des Betes," 1847.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 
 
 IN science one of the most successful Teutonic warriors 
 appears to be Weismann, who imposed his yoke 
 on the larger part of the biological world. They would 
 still seem happy under it, even if uneasy at times, and, 
 perhaps, more doubtful than they appear. It is the duty 
 of the orthodox to disclaim doubt and to profess belief 
 with fervency. This is especially binding upon those who 
 occupy the pulpit : if the priests of neo-Darwinians, 
 that cult purified of pangenes, use, and disuse, and the 
 transmission of acquired characteristics, showed hesita- 
 tion and ceased to preach dogmatics, their reputations 
 would be ruined, and the congregation become a lost 
 flock. Too little stress is laid on the vices of orthodoxy 
 for, not only does it make men blind, it makes them cling 
 to untenable positions. It would be more than terrible 
 to discover that theirs was the worship of no translated 
 but a vanished god. For did not Zeus himself die, and 
 is he not buried in Crete ? 
 
 I do not propose in a short chapter to deal with the 
 whole case for the transmission of acquired or altered 
 characteristics, either on its theoretic or experimental 
 side. But it has already been suggested in this book that 
 to neglect relative speculation, that is to say, speculation 
 
 dealing with like phenomena on different planes of life, 
 
 183
 
 184 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 is to put aside a powerful weapon of analysis, and there 
 are, or so it seems to me, reasons for believing that some 
 purely theoretic criticisms of the germ-plasm hypothesis 
 may help to show where it is true and where false. In 
 any case the orthodox can hardly complain of the use of 
 theory since Weismannism, however its characteristics 
 have been altered and transmitted, is still almost purely 
 theoretical, being supported chiefly by the argument that 
 no other view accounts for everything. This is, how- 
 ever, a theological rather than a scientific argument, 
 for the inclusive and complete hypothesis is dear to the 
 ecclesiastic mind. 
 
 It can, perhaps, be remarked that orthodox biologists 
 do not avail themselves of all biological resources. In 
 discussion the salient fact emerges that they rely mainly 
 on cytology for practical support. But since cytology 
 is dependent on the microscope, a valuable but increas- 
 ingly hazardous tool of research as higher powers are 
 used, the more observations are extended the more un- 
 certain are the conclusions reached. Among few of the 
 pure school of neo-Darwinians do we see the biological 
 conception of the organism properly considered, nor do 
 the devotees of cell -structure and the ever-enlarging 
 ritual of the chromosomes seem to reflect that every cell 
 they observe in situ or in the dark field is after all a uni- 
 cellular organism. When it is so considered, since any 
 organism is a definite spatially related set of colonial 
 organisms, it might even seem that Weismann himself 
 had given his whole case away by admitting that uni- 
 cellular organisms could and did acquire and transmit 
 acquired or altered characteristics. 
 
 It may be repeated, moreover, that biologists how- 
 ever learned in cytology and the pure literature of their
 
 HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 185 
 
 own subject, for the most part ignore all the related 
 sciences. With regard to pathology I have endeavoured 
 in some measure to make good this omission in the 
 remarks on Repair in Evolution, and although it is obvious 
 that the conclusions reached there are not likely to be 
 greeted with enthusiasm by those who hold the germ- 
 plasm theory, I shall not now lay any great stress upon 
 them. In this place it may be more pertinent to turn 
 to general histology, a subject which so far seems little 
 known to those engaged in biological study. For 
 nearly all work upon heredity appears to begin 
 with, and to be founded upon, a consideration of the 
 perfect gametes, and to proceed with elaborate accounts 
 of their reduction, maturation, and fusion in the zygote 
 without taking into full account the tissue history of the 
 organs in which they arise. In saying so much the in- 
 sistence on germinal epithelium is not overlooked, for 
 nowhere have I been able to discover why it is called 
 " germinal," except from the fact that in the higher 
 organisms the sperm and egg cells descend from epithe- 
 lium. Although in many of the lower kinds they 
 spring from blood cells, or other cells, this fact is inter- 
 preted by Weismannians as the pressing of germ cells 
 into general service, a view which is an outrage on logic. 
 It may be suggested that the tissue history of the 
 colony of epithelial cells in which they develop must 
 discover one very important fact, which is that they 
 have a special environment, and that when they are 
 " born," that is to say when they leave it for another, 
 the second or third place they occupy, though still an 
 environment, is less and less special as the growing cell 
 itself specializes. It seems to be forgotten that among 
 mammalians the offspring is at the least " born " three
 
 186 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 times, once when extruded from the Graafian follicle, 
 once when it throws in its lot with the sperm cell and 
 makes common stock of its energy and chromosomatic 
 tools, and again when extruded by the uterus after a 
 prolonged period of parasitism. With a properly and 
 naturally nourished infant the number of births may 
 be said to reach four when it is weaned. Far too much 
 criticism is made of direct adaptation to environment 
 in the adult organism, and far too little study given to 
 pre-embryonic and embryonic stages, even by most of 
 the advocates of such adaptation. 
 
 As mitigating to some extent the fairly obvious 
 biological ignorance of histology, it must be admitted 
 that very little seems known of the histology of the 
 ovaries and the ova, the testes and the spermatoza, for 
 Schafer disposes of the subject in a few lines, and other 
 authorities are equally brief. Something may be found 
 in Wilson, and Weismann himself dealt with it in- 
 effectively. As his theory rendered it unimportant, 
 this is not a matter for wonder. The ovarian tissues 
 and the history of the oocytes seem less known than 
 that of the testes, although in this last case much 
 remains to be cleared up. It is a fact that both sperm cell 
 and ovum develop, not from any more obviously special 
 tissue than epithelium, but very often from epithelioid 
 cells which have not taken on the full character of epi- 
 thelium. To deal first with the testis, we may say with 
 Schafer and Brown, that the sperm cells are developed 
 from the small spermatoblasts which form the inner 
 stratum of the seminal epithelium, and that these them- 
 selves are formed by division from the spermatogenic 
 or mother cell of the second layer. It seems probable 
 that these descend from the lining epithelium. Thus
 
 HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 187 
 
 we have a definite descent of the sperm cell in at 
 least four stages : (i) Division of living epithelium cell 
 into two cells, one of which becomes a spermatogen and 
 passes into the second layer, while the other does not 
 migrate, but enlarges and becomes a sustentacular 
 cell, apparently connected with the nutrition of the 
 spermatozoa when fully formed and during conversion. 
 (2) Division of the spermatogen. (3) Further division 
 and resulting daughter cells are converted into spermato- 
 blasts. (4) Growth and elongation of spermatoblasts 
 into spermatozoa. 
 
 In the ovaries similar processes appear to take 
 place by which the follicles are developed from lining 
 epithelium. Some of the cells develop into ova, and 
 are thus direct descendants of epithelium. So far it 
 seems that there is no reason whatsoever to be found 
 in any of the processes for assuming that germ-plasm 
 in the narrow sense exists at all. The succeeding 
 phenomena can be accounted for without any great 
 exercise of faith if we consider such processes as de- 
 pendent on the cell's energy and the catalysts, or tools, 
 brought over in the oocyte and sperm cell, or derived 
 later by the zygote from the tissues and blood-stream 
 of the maternal parent. For during the most important 
 part of the reproductive cell's life, that spent in the 
 originating tissue, it was a unicellular organism acquir- 
 ing the characteristics which under other conditions 
 develop and diverge. If such a view is accepted the 
 great determining period of the reproductive cell is its 
 early testicular or ovarian history, not that of its 
 later embryonic life. During the first state we can 
 easily imagine the epithelioid cell acquiring freely the 
 activators, catalysts, or similar hormones, which direct
 
 188 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 operations in the adult organism. To say that it contains 
 germ-plasm is to assume something without real proof, 
 and no observations of germ-tracks, or theories of 
 germinal epithelium as ultimate facts, can invalidate 
 the conclusion that, as the function and form of the 
 adult are determined by definite agents, so the functions 
 and form of the free oocyte, sperm cell, or zygote, are 
 thus determined from moment to moment of its develop- 
 ment. Such a view takes into account the law of 
 parsimony, which requires us to posit no unknown 
 factors where known ones can be seen producing similar 
 results. 
 
 Pure early theoretic Weismannism has no doubt been 
 modified and diluted. So has early theology. We are 
 no longer required to assent to a cloud of biophors, a 
 hierarchy of determinants, and a whole angelology of ids 
 as a sine qua non to biological salvation, though it may 
 possibly be shown that the dilution of the theory has not 
 allowed for the truth in it, if it is considered rather as an 
 illustration than as true theory. But still sufficient of the 
 suggested machinery remains to enable the neo-Darwinian 
 to believe that all change is due to minute germinal varia- 
 tions in the chromosomes, though no one of them has yet 
 acknowledged that such variations are variations in definite 
 tools, as even Weismann himself might have acknowledged 
 if as much had been known of the endocrines in his time 
 as is known now. Disguise it as they may, the whole theory 
 as held is concealed vitalism and a circulus in definiendo. 
 If the germ-plasm is an ultimate fact not resolvable into 
 recognizable scientific factors it is absurd to call the theory 
 scientific, unless it is asserted that " nature " and " life " 
 are scientific words instead of verbal shorthand. Nothing, 
 indeed, can be described as scientific explanation which
 
 HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 189 
 
 cannot in the end show phenomena as the result of known 
 factors. Thus ultimate explanation is not explanation 
 at all. We cannot yet resolve final physical laws, and 
 therefore ultimate physics can only be called descriptive. 
 It is true the phenomena may in the end be ranged under 
 mathematical conceptions ; but mathematical reasoning is 
 not science in the strict sense. It is abstract illustration 
 of theoretic possibilities, and thus akin to pure logic. The 
 theory of Weismann, if it has any foundation, must be 
 capable of resolution, and may not be looked on as a quasi- 
 mathematical or purely verbal illustration of possible 
 mechanism. The effort of the neo-Darwinians to dispense 
 with his terminology is, indeed, not sound. What they 
 should have done, and what remains to be done, is to see 
 if his terms will bear translation into measurable factors. 
 This, I think, can be achieved but, if it can, the " nature " 
 of the germ-plasm will disappear and theoretic deter- 
 minants must disclose themselves as hormones, enzymes, 
 catalysts, and successively formed internal secretions, by 
 which each early cell-change or later embryonic or adult 
 development is actually determined. As held, the theory is 
 but a form of the " Absolute " conditioned purely by natural 
 selection. It may appeal to some philosophers, and to those 
 whose tendency is to short-circuit explanation by the hasty 
 use of final definitions ; but it might at least give pause to 
 its adherents to observe that anatomists, physiologists, 
 palaeontologists, and many others work habitually on the 
 theory that, whatever the mechanism, modifications can 
 be transmitted. It is true they may agree with the orthodox 
 biologist that in such cases the nuclear contents of the 
 reproductive cells are altered ; but they would certainly 
 add that such an alteration must be in the nature of an 
 addition, subtraction, or new combination of substances of
 
 190 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 a catalytic or determining nature. And if this is correct 
 it follows, from all we know of iron-using bacteria to the 
 latest hypo- or hyperthyroidal patient, that these sub- 
 stances, however simple or complex, can be added or taken 
 away, and that in the food, or in successive metabolic 
 states resulting from its use, new catalysts may be formed, 
 combined or changed, as they can be by environmental 
 stimuli such as light. When saying so much it should be 
 added that I am aware of the work done, which, in certain 
 cases, shows, or seems to show, that there is an early 
 isolation of a germ-cell, ex hypothesi, containing the unim- 
 pressionable "germ-plasm." Yet whatever may be found 
 with regard to the embryo of a shark, or any of the cases 
 held to prove such early specialization, the facts are 
 insufficient on which to found a general law. They afford 
 no explanation of budding or repair, or the cases in which 
 " germ-cells " are wandering amoeboid bodies, and even 
 blood-cells, or of the so-called germinal epithelium itself. 
 To speak, as is often done, of specificity of detail as being 
 determined wholly by chromosomatic facts, without re- 
 solving the magic of " specificity" into definite " tools," is 
 surely idle. It is concealed vitalism. Nor do we really 
 learn much when we are told that in certain cases germ- 
 cells do not arise from ccelomic epithelium, but that they 
 migrate from special germ-areas into the gonad, since there 
 are so many different ways in which such specialization 
 begins. 
 
 To show that the natural tendency of the physiologist is 
 to accept such a view as transmission Starling may be 
 quoted. His work on hormones, done in conjunction with 
 Bayliss, shows that he has a great appreciation of the power 
 of certain secretions to influence in the profoundest degree 
 digestive and metabolic processes. The possibility of
 
 HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 191 
 
 prostate secretion tabloids curing chronic mastitis may be 
 mentioned (Lane). Since few biologists concern them- 
 selves as much as they should with physiology, and not at 
 all with pathology, which is just as necessary a part of 
 their proper apparatus, it may be pointed out that some 
 internal secretions have such observable effects in the 
 minutest proportions. That it becomes intelligible how the 
 minute parathyroids, four of which weigh two grains, 
 have such great physiological effects as to make certain 
 they are real determinants. According to Schafer, a strip 
 of intestinal muscle is affected by adrenalin in a solution 
 of i in 20,000,000 and a strip of coronary artery by i in 
 50,000,000. Pysemsky and Kravkov state that the effect 
 of one part in 250,000,000 could be detected when per- 
 fusing a rabbit's ear with Ringer's solution. Such results 
 may at least suggest that an almost infinitely small pro- 
 portion of an inorganic catalyst or organic secretion, 
 whether coming over in an egg or sperm cell, or taken in 
 later from the parental host, might be a determinant of 
 immense capacity. No doubt such ideas as these moved 
 Starling to the statement that " cell-division in the organism 
 might be spoken of as the evolution of a new kind of cell, 
 but that the change takes place within the development 
 of the multicellular parent, or host, instead of occupying 
 a long space of time and involving the destruction of 
 countless individuals as when a change of type occurs 
 gradually in a unicellular organism." Now, independent 
 of the fact that we have no evidence that a unicellular 
 organism may not change as quickly, or even more quickly, 
 when transferred to water with different saline constituents, 
 as an Alpine flower when transferred to the warm lowlands, 
 and even positive evidence that it can so change (J. Loeb), 
 it may be remarked that about seven months from im-
 
 192 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 pregnation is sufficient for a new human being to become 
 viable. That delivery usually takes place at nine is due 
 no doubt to the average size of the pelvic ring. Yet the 
 maternal organism took many millions of years to become 
 what it is now if some anthropologists are right in thinking 
 man, as man, dates back at least 1,500,000 years. If the 
 evolution of such a high metazoan from a unicellular 
 organism took only ten million years, which seems an im- 
 possibly short time, similar changes are actually repeated 
 
 in about six months, say of the time of 
 
 20000000 
 
 evolution. On what grounds then can we assert that 
 some undifferentiated protoplasmic units cannot become 
 developed oocytes during the time from birth to puberty ? 
 The simpler spermatozoa, also developing from un- 
 specialized epithelioid tissue, come even earlier to 
 maturity, as they may be found active in infants. Time 
 does not seem the essence of the contract, for the whole 
 physiological theory of living matter is practically based 
 on what is known and measurable, the activating and 
 accelerating qualities of catalysts. Without going to 
 the philosophers or metaphysicians, to Kant or Einstein, 
 for instruction as to the relativity or physical nature 
 of the time concept, we can recognize that it is at least 
 purely relative in physiology and biology. The whole 
 of evolution, as of education, is the discovery of short 
 cuts, and in this the Principle of Least Action is at work. 
 Free energy perpetually adopts the shortest path to become 
 bound. Common sense itself is that principle in social 
 work. Little by little the organism as it evolved picked 
 up and transmitted by successive experiment, by trial 
 and error, activators which hastened processes. Time, 
 therefore, in the sense that Starling used it, does not seem
 
 HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 193 
 
 to be an essential factor. His instincts, and his knowledge 
 of activating principles and processes, appear to have led 
 him right after all. Activating elements are supplied 
 fully developed by the parents who took uncounted 
 ages to acquire them. There is no reason whatsoever 
 for not endorsing Starling's almost wistful statement, 
 although in some moment of doubt he rejected it at last. 
 If the elements themselves show that in a like temperature- 
 environment they stay the same, and change when it 
 changes, and yet go back when it again alters, no more 
 is asked by any advocate of transmission. We may even 
 say, as I have suggested elsewhere, 1 that the whole course 
 of evolution suggests that what we have to discover is not 
 why child is like parent but why, in certain cases, it is 
 unlike, being sure as we pass to the investigation that some 
 internal or external environmental cause is at the bottom 
 of the alteration. Belogolovy bred ova of the frog 
 Pelobates in the parental body cavity. Their " deter- 
 minants " determined nothing as the ova became para- 
 sitic and presented highly abnormal characteristics, not 
 Pelobatic at all. Such considerations may no doubt 
 be dismissed as purely theoretical, or even excursions of 
 the fancy ; but if it is noted that the greatest weakness 
 to which all scientific men are liable is the natural tendency 
 to take the easiest path, and ignore general principles, 
 they may not seem so much out of place. The easiest 
 path at a given time is not always the right one. We 
 may get very doubtful adaptation to facts, for energy 
 over the pyramidal tract does not work with the same 
 certainty as adrenalin. 
 
 If the orthodox school could give any hint as to how 
 a variation is to be explained, and what it is that is changed 
 
 1 Vide Repair in Evolution. 
 13
 
 194 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 in the germ-plasm or the chromosomes, they would be 
 compelled to come down to the earth and stand on the 
 firm ground of chemical or biochemical action. Once 
 there they might be led to admit at last that any steady 
 external stimulus may alter one cell, and that if so it may 
 alter many, or that the accidental acquisition of some 
 metal or salt may end in its being a permanent tool in the 
 armoury of the whole organism. Their very insistence 
 on germinal qualities and intra-germinal " struggle " and 
 selection is sound so far as it goes ; but they cannot be 
 allowed to remain juggling with such factors without 
 telling us in what the struggle consists, and what weapons 
 or tools are used, or at the very least without taking 
 into consideration what other sciences can supply them 
 with. It is a sound principle, and certainly one I have 
 always tried to bear in mind, that no body of earnest 
 workers can be altogether wrong. Even the Hering- 
 Semon " mnemes " and Samuel Butler's " memory " can 
 now be translated into biochemical factors. If in one 
 sense a " mneme " seemed to mean no more than that 
 an altered thing was no longer what it was, we may still 
 turn the word into measurable factors. The experience 
 of the cell is in its education, its acquisition of new tools, 
 and " memory " is but the due repetition of phenomena 
 when like causes and catalysts are in action in like tissues. 
 The desired bridge between those who assert and those 
 who deny transmission must in the end be found by 
 building on factors which admit the basal doctrines of 
 both. It may be admitted that the " germ-plasm," or 
 reproductive cell with all the tools in its nucleus or 
 scattered as granules among the great society of its 
 molecular units, changes for the most part with great 
 difficulty. It is a conservative social organism. But
 
 HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 195 
 
 change it does, and in the end changes must be due to 
 the whole of the environment. Exactly the same may be 
 said of the social organism. Few who take a philo- 
 sophical view of history would deny that the most salient 
 fact about man is really his conservatism. They might 
 even adopt the terminology of the biologists, and say his 
 germ-plasm altered not at all. Yet on further reflection 
 they would admit that a similar " victory over nature," 
 as occurs when a cell gets hold of a new tool, occurs when 
 man learns to use steam or electricity. From one point 
 of view, with a short time-element, social change seems 
 rapid. From another it appears slow. We may say 
 that any organ is elastic or rigid, just as we please, 
 according to the point of view we happen to take at the 
 time. 
 
 As I have pointed out in other places, the obscurity 
 of cellular phenomena is probably greatly increased by 
 the assumption that the nucleus is " alive," that is, 
 composed of protoplasm. 1 There seems no evidence for 
 this beyond the fact that it contains nucleins, the whole 
 chemistry of which was worked out by Emil Fischer 
 (Bayliss). These nucleins are compounds of a protein 
 with nucleic acid. Many enzymes deal with their meta- 
 bolism, and it is far more probable that they are the 
 reserve food protein of the living protoplasm than part 
 of that much more obscure and complex protein engine. 
 Certainly it seems that a far clearer notion of a cell's 
 activities is reached if we conceive it as a social aggregate 
 of protoplasmic units, however complex they may be, 
 with a storehouse of food and tools or working catalytic 
 bodies, than if we regard the varying moving nucleus as 
 a live part of it. When a test-bearing protozoon has 
 
 1 Vide Method in Science.
 
 196 
 
 its test pierced the nucleus moves up to the breach and 
 repairs it. Such a process mimics purposed action, and, 
 indeed, is purposed action if, as certainly may be done, 
 we analyse all purpose into complexes of tropisms. The 
 probable causes of the nuclear movements are the negative 
 tropisms of the protoplasmic elements. They are repelled 
 by the salts of the water, in which the cell lives, and from 
 which the test protects them, and gradually thrust for- 
 ward the non-living nucleus which contains the catalysts 
 or tools which can hasten the deposition of such con- 
 stituents of the cell wall as are needed for repair. The 
 process is exactly similar to that of an expert with tools 
 being thrust and drawn into the position in which he 
 can use them to make good the result of some accident 
 which requires instant attention. These views are sup- 
 ported by the work of Haberlandt. 
 
 This conception of a nuclear tool-house and store- 
 house brings the cell as a social organism into line with 
 those we more commonly call social, and if the generaliza- 
 tion is made that living action of all kinds, in the cell, a 
 tissue, an organ, an animal, a social body, or an " in- 
 dividual " such as a nation, is of a like nature, it may be 
 inferred that it is not so much on the actual protoplasm 
 itself as on the acquired tools, and what is made by them, 
 that differences of form and action depend. The same 
 protoplasmic energy engine makes a muscle cell or a 
 neuron. The notion of different kinds or grades of proto- 
 plasm appears to be without foundation. That of a 
 sperm cell or a hepatic cell is probably just the same and, 
 if Child (Senescence and Rejuvenescence) is right, it may 
 surely be inferred that an increase of protoplasmic 
 activity depends on new tools, the increase of old ones, 
 or the loss of those once useful which have ceased to be
 
 HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 197 
 
 so, while its decrease follows on the retention of what is no 
 longer needed or effective a highly conservative pro- 
 ceeding. The conservative tendency to retain property 
 of all kinds is thus seen in the very cell, and a house 
 crowded with useless lumber has its true analogue in a 
 so-called senescent cell, which has become static and rigid 
 with a morbid " sense of property." Old age is truly 
 hindrance and poisoning, not necessarily any alteration 
 of protoplasmic units, whatever they may be. 
 
 To some it may seem an unjustifiable inference, but 
 the conclusions reached in this way tend to show that 
 every determinant, late or early, is a definite tool or engine. 
 England is not the same country that it was when wood 
 was used instead of coal. It changed with great rapidity 
 when the use of steam became common. Electricity 
 has till greater possibilities of change. But we cannot 
 assert that the brains of the modern business man are 
 better than those of the Athenians, or that Watt and 
 Stephenson were greater geniuses than men's early ancestor 
 who first made a wheel, or the one who discovered that 
 watrr poured on the early rude axle acted as a cooling 
 age-it and lubricant. The reason of the rapid advance 
 of the Americans in material civilization was their adapta- 
 tion of the English tools into an organism less cumbered 
 with static elements. Vested interests discover them- 
 selves as slowers of metabolism, and as obstacles to new 
 construction, the result of new tools which can be acquired 
 and transmitted. Germ-plasm on this view is just the 
 same as any other plasm, and if the nee-Darwinians 
 insist that practically, that is, in any given time, it does 
 not alter, no one will have any quarrel with them. But 
 those who believe that cell is a social aggregate using tools 
 as much as an animal or a society, and that the same laws
 
 198 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 rule all organic growth and change assuredly, cannot accept 
 the view that Natural Selection and germinal accidents 
 are the sole causes of variation. Such conclusions imply 
 entirely different laws for similar aggregates, and have 
 an unholy resemblance to vitalism, the conception of 
 entelechies, or to Driesch's rudimentary psychoids, surely 
 the most humorous extravagance since Hartzoeker's 
 Homunculus. 
 
 It has not been my intention in this paper to point to 
 the strong evidence in favour of transmission of acquisi- 
 tions. 1 Cunningham, MacBride, Kammerer, and others 
 can take care of themselves, and have presented many 
 enigmas to those who would solve them on the principle 
 of the continuity of germ-plasm. To those, however, 
 who have read the chapter on Repair in Evolution it will 
 be obvious that the evidence brought forward there must 
 be rebutted, distorted, or rejected, without consideration 
 of the general laws of mechanical or other construction, 
 if the theory that variations are due to the phenomena 
 of fertilization is to have the remotest chance of survival. 
 I may, however, remark that further reading and con- 
 sideration have confirmed me in the view that variational 
 repair takes place during embryonic growth owing to 
 increased functional activity due to relative changes of 
 catalytic elements in the parent. To those with the 
 smallest knowledge of histology the phenomena of muscle 
 growth alone are sufficient to prove this, unless they are 
 content to believe that small minute variation can con- 
 struct such a wonderful though obviously repaired organ 
 as the heart. Organ-forming substances there undoubtedly 
 are, but they must finally be translated into chemical or 
 biochemical agents, probably of a discoverable kind, 
 
 1 See Appendix B. The Peroneus Tertius.
 
 HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 199 
 
 which influence all forms of growth. Thus even Lewis's 
 experiment of transplanting the optic vesicle, with the 
 result of a transformation of the skin above it into a 
 rudimentary lens, will probably be finally explained as the 
 evolutionary possession by the vesicle of a catalytic secre- 
 tion activated by light which alters the form and structure 
 of the epithelial cells in close contact with it. We can 
 conceive no organ-forming substance to construct the 
 heart ; but it is easy enough to regard it as a progressively 
 formed functional adaptation to stresses imposed upon it 
 during embryonic growth in which it is, to use Starling's 
 words, " a new creation." Von Nageli and Hertwig 
 pointed out with each stage in growth the internal environ- 
 mental complexity increases. But such complexity uses 
 an increasing complexity of tools, for just as mere increase 
 of numbers in a factory without new instruments does 
 not necessarily result in new differentiations among the 
 workers or different structural developments in the build- 
 ings, so in the animal organism mere increase in bulk does 
 not imply increasing complexity. The most important 
 variables in all growth, structure, and function are the 
 " tools " used, and the engines made of them, and the 
 illustrations of the phenomena of budding and mitosis 
 given in Method in Science are probably far more than 
 illustrations of the way in which organisms in a changing 
 environment acquire the tools which change function 
 and change structure and can be transmitted, just as they 
 can be lost in another environment. 
 
 It seems, then, as if Weismann occupies the position 
 of a mathematician who works out a set of equations in 
 which a, b, x, and y obviously represent no more than 
 possible theoretic factors leading to a conclusion which 
 is afterwards found to be near the mark as soon as the
 
 200 
 
 letters employed are translated into physical agents. 
 So far Weismann was right. But living processes work 
 out like complex mathematical equations. The Binomial 
 Theorem may be in (x+y) n in one sense, but so was Keat's 
 " Ode to the Nightingale " in the alphabet. It is common 
 among mathematicians to say such and such an equation 
 " naturally becomes " such and such, or takes another 
 form from which yet another can be deduced. This 
 " naturally becomes " is intelligible to another mathe- 
 matician, but the unlearned require the insertion of the 
 steps omitted to perceive that the change is logical. The 
 orthodox theory omits the links, and does not turn its 
 prime equation into things. There is a likeness between 
 such algebraic processes, and those which take place in the 
 living organism, for we find that if certain tools are used 
 in ovarian or embryonic stages they " naturally become " 
 varied in action, and though we may know little more of 
 a chromosomatic tool than we do of a or b in the original 
 equation, we perceive that in conjunction with other 
 activators it changes into adrenalin, thyroidin, secretin, 
 or some other regulative or directive hormone. Moreover, 
 as in mathematical reasoning we may introduce a new 
 variable while the constant remains the same, so it is with 
 the organism. The constant is protoplasm. Not all 
 organisms use iron. There are some which use manganese. 
 At some period a descendant of the ancestral amoeba 
 of the mammal picked up iron and used it. It is employed 
 in varying quantities. As evolution progressed internal 
 secretion after internal secretion came into existence, 
 determining living action. Without adrenalin the 
 mammal could not meet danger quickly. But it is 
 as absurd to argue that the mere potentiality of 
 adrenalin is a determinant in the chromosome as
 
 HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 201 
 
 it would be to argue that the possession of a fleet 
 is determined by the " nature " of an embryonic tribe 
 which has not yet seen the sea. Environment and func- 
 tion cannot be ignored. A fleet does not grow up by 
 minute advantageous " spontaneous " variations. It is an 
 acquired tool, and itself determines further historic evolu- 
 tion. The " constant " in germ-plasm is the nature of 
 protoplasm : its infinite variability, as shown in all forms 
 of life, is a variability which is further and further con- 
 stricted into more and more definite lines by definite 
 constructions, until at last in a static environment stasis 
 is reached. Yet the discovery of another tool, a new 
 means of short-circuiting labour, may again set the static 
 organism upon a voyage of discovery among the potentia- 
 lities of life. With change of function, which should in- 
 clude the phenomena of regeneration and reduction, comes 
 morphallaxis. Without it there is none. Death itself is an 
 acquired characteristic. If the organism were not perpetu- 
 ally preyed on by other organisms, which by parasitism and 
 poisoning divert or hinder energy, inhibit, or over-activate, 
 metabolism through the induction of changes in the endo- 
 crines, and destroy tissue functions generally, it is con- 
 ceivable that such a characteristic as death might be 
 lost, and that any body, however highly developed, might 
 resume the long-abandoned characteristics of unicellular 
 organisms, and again become practically immortal. 
 
 REFERENCES. 
 
 BAYLISS and STARLING. " Mechanism of Pancreatic Secre- 
 tion," Journ. Physiol., London, p. 28. 
 
 BELOGOLOVY, G. A. " Nouvcaux Memoires," Soc. Imp. 
 Naiuralistcs de Moscow, 1916. 
 
 BUTLER, SAMUEL. " Unconscious Memory."
 
 202 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 CH ILD, C. M. " Senescence and Rejuvenescence," Chicago, 1915. 
 FISCHER, EMIL. " Untersuchingen in der Puringruppe, 1907 ; 
 
 v. Bayliss, " Principles of General Physiology," 1915. 
 HABERLANDT, G. " Ueber die Beziehungen zwischen Functionen 
 
 und Lage des Zelkerns," 1877. 
 LANE, Sir A. Lancet, London, Oct. 9, 1918. 
 LOEB, JACQUES. "The Organism as a Whole," 1916. 
 OLIVER, G., and SCHAFER, E. A. " Physiological Effects of 
 
 Extracts of Supra-renal Capsules," Journ. PhysioL, London, 
 
 1918. 
 PYSEMSKY and KRAVKOV. " Adrenalin and Ear of Rabbit," 
 
 Russky Vratch, vol. xi. p. 264. 
 SCHAFER, E. A. " The Endocrine Organs," 1916. 
 WEISMANN, A. "The Germ Plasm," London, 1893. 
 WILSON. "The Cell."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 THE ORIGIN OF THERAPEUTIC BATHING 1 
 
 THE comparative study of the sciences, upon which I 
 have insisted, I trust not unduly, may not be only 
 of value where pure science is concerned, but may also 
 prove of immense service in many of the arts of life. The 
 conception of hostile symbiosis is of such obvious relevance 
 in politics that what was an art can at once be converted 
 into a section of biology. Moreover, this and allied con- 
 ceptions tending to show the vital analogies in all con- 
 struction may be employed generally in education, and 
 especially in medicine, in which narrowness of outlook 
 is especially dangerous. For knowledge of one kind may, 
 and indeed must, act as a catalyst on thought with regard 
 to another. It seemed to me when first considering the 
 subject of this chapter, which may, perhaps, seem not strictly 
 connected with these that precede it, that anthropology, 
 upon which light can be thrown by general biology, physi- 
 ology and pathology, might prove of the greatest value, if 
 taught intelligently and with due appreciation of its wide 
 bearings, to all students of the human brain and body. It 
 thus appeared to me that a very simple subject which was 
 
 1 Although never read, this paper was written as an address to a 
 Balneological Society, and therefore may retain some indication of its 
 origin. For most of the facts I am, of course, indebted to The Golden 
 Bough, the mightiest storehouse of co-ordinated knowledge in the English, 
 or any other, language.
 
 204 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 still obscure might illustrate this better than abstract 
 reasoning, if the processes involved in its study showed in 
 what ways the brain is apt to work, and how purely 
 magical concepts may lead to useful discovery. If we 
 learn how our remote ancestors thought, we shall discern, 
 perhaps with humility, that we are their true descendants, 
 and that modern life with all its advantages, even the 
 modern balneologist and the very household bath itself, is 
 still a subject for the anthropologist. 
 
 Although very few of us are like the Japanese maid 
 who is said to have apologized to her European mistress 
 for not taking more than three hot baths during a 
 busy day, to most educated men bathing seems a natural, 
 almost an instinctive process. They would be uncom- 
 fortable now if anything went wrong with the morning 
 bath, as it is apt to do when the coal supply fails. Such 
 discomfort, however, is soon cured by compulsory absti- 
 nence, for my own experience has taught me that after 
 three days want of washing little discomfort is felt by the 
 average man. On two occasions in my life, once at sea 
 coming up to the Falkland Islands from the Horn in very 
 heavy weather, and once in the Australian bush when there 
 was a drought, I was unable for a fortnight at a time to do 
 so much as wash my face. The feeling of discomfort dis- 
 appeared on the second or third day, and I seemed ready 
 to do without washing for the rest of my life. 
 
 The truth is that cleanliness is not natural to mankind. 
 Most parents know from their own experience that to 
 teach a child to persevere with soap and water is the most 
 arduous task that falls to a mother or a nurse. Washing 
 thus appears to be anything but the result of instinct, 
 since it is not so much as an easily acquired habit. Un- 
 luckily for the vast body of the population in our civil-
 
 ORIGIN OF THERAPEUTIC BATHING 205 
 
 ization it is not even economically possible. Those who 
 have read the books of George Gissing may remember 
 that he answered the assertion that the poor might at 
 least be clean by exclaiming, with bitter truth, that 
 cleanliness was an expensive luxury. Among many of 
 the agricultural and pastoral peasantry of Britain a man is 
 washed all over twice, or at most three times, in his life : 
 once when he is born, once when he is married, though 
 this is not universal, and once when he is dead. Yet 
 bathing before marriage in many cases is practically a 
 magic ceremony, and since magic dates from the remotest 
 period it might be supposed to remain as ritual. There is 
 no doubt that the washing of children at birth was also 
 anciently purificatory. The role that blood, especially the 
 blood of women, has played in the history of lustration is 
 very remarkable. That the corpse is also washed after 
 death is, of course, also the remains of a ceremony of puri- 
 fication. But if it is a fact that washing in its origin was 
 due to religion and magic, as seems certain, how did it 
 begin at all ? It may seem absurd to ask such a question ; 
 but the more we know of anthropology, which is but the 
 study of man in the making, the more it is seen that all 
 apparently natural processes must have had a beginning, 
 and require an explanation. It has often been observed 
 that even the instincts themselves are not perfect, and 
 require experience and education. One of the very deepest 
 and most ancient, that of sex, is certainly not least in need 
 of it. One need not read Havelock Ellis to discover so 
 much, seeing that many of those engaged in obstetrical prac- 
 tice have assisted at deliveries in which the infant in the 
 act of birth destroyed the unbroken hymen. Education 
 is not only needed with the sexual instinct ; but, if Horace 
 Fletcher and Doctor Chittenden and Sir Michael Foster
 
 206 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 were right, it is the same with some of the obscure reflexes 
 connected with eating. The reflex which prevents, or 
 should prevent premature deglutition, is outraged by all, 
 especially when they enjoy the pleasures of conversation 
 and the table at the same time. I do not know whether it 
 has ever been noticed, even by the observers I have named, 
 that this particular reflex only comes naturally into play 
 when savage methods of feeding are indulged in, that is to 
 say, when the mouth is crammed with food and swallowing 
 in the ordinary sense is actually impossible. If we decide 
 to re-educate this particular reflex Fletcher advised us to 
 work over long paths to restore its efficacy ; that is, to 
 attend voluntarily to mastication. It may, however, be 
 pointed out that if a child is not interfered with by a 
 polite mother it will fill its mouth so full that deglutition 
 without thorough mastication is impossible. The natural 
 instinct will lead the child to use and preserve its teeth 
 and its digestion. The pleasant, but physiologically 
 damnable, habit of cheerful conversation at meal-times 
 should be corrected. There are, however, no instincts 
 which lead the young to bathing, and such reflex actions as 
 are connected with it are, among the simple, merely those 
 of repulsion. The instincts of mankind are really against 
 it. What then was its origin, seeing the common dislike 
 and even horror of water displayed by those unaccustomed 
 to it, and the comparative ease with which even the most 
 cleanly under pressure learn to do without it ? I think it 
 will not be so difficult to find how it arose and branched 
 into purification and therapeutics if we delve into the far 
 past with the help of anthropology. 
 
 The first thing that one learns in dealing with primitive 
 man is, that although he was logical, his premisses partook 
 of the simplicity seen in children, even the most intelligent,
 
 ORIGIN OF THERAPEUTIC BATHING 207 
 
 as they learn how to deal with the world before them. 
 What seems perfectly natural now was by no means 
 natural to primeval man. How indeed could it be when 
 their great working hypothesis of life was that some innate 
 power or some governing spirit was at the bottom of every- 
 thing ? Before animism, in the sense that all things had 
 souls, was a current belief, the primitive mind seems to 
 have regarded all nature as self-moving like themselves. 
 For the notion of spirit is a late abstract notion. But when 
 a power or a spirit, good or bad, had to be managed, it is 
 perfectly obvious that water itself, that strange triple- 
 natured liquid, should have become the subject of magic. 
 Long ages before Thales, humanity had recognized that it 
 was in many ways the basis of life. They attributed to it 
 remarkable qualities, and when the Hebrews spoke of it as 
 "living" water we should do the nature of language 
 wrong if we considered the adjective was employed merely 
 as a metaphor. To us it seems natural if we are by a river 
 or a pool in hot weather to strip ourselves and plunge into 
 it. But this is by no means the attitude of many savages 
 even at the present day, and in the far-off beginning of time 
 to do so obviously risked placing the bather at the mercy 
 of the naturally untrustworthy fluid or, later, of the spirit 
 which lived in and moved all water. 
 
 Among savages nothing answers to our conception of 
 the natural. Disease is not natural. It, like death itself, 
 is the work of an enemy. It is the result of the evil 
 machinations of those who hate men or a man. But all 
 evil is not wrought by spirits or magicians. Even now 
 there are material agencies of a horrible kind. In Australia 
 there are no dangerous wild beasts ; but the fearful mind 
 of man invented them. Terror is infectious ; the abori- 
 gines have made many white converts. When I was
 
 208 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 working in the bush I was often entertained with vivid 
 accounts of the Bunyip, that imaginary dreadful animal 
 which, as I was told, is at least as big as a horse, and is 
 often to be heard roaring at midnight in deep water-holes 
 or rivers. Although I was then young, and had not any 
 conception of anthropology or, indeed, of psychology as 
 more than words, I was much struck by the fact that a 
 large number of uneducated white men were easily led 
 to believe in the existence of this creature. They were 
 highly superstitious, and superstition is the imperfect 
 functioning of ancient organic belief. If then even death 
 is not natural to the mind of primitive man, and if he 
 attributed self-acting malignancy to natural agents, it 
 seems perfectly obvious that drowning was to him the 
 result of a deliberate act on the part of evil water, and 
 later, of that water's malignant spirit. No one will need 
 to be reminded of the legend of the Lorelei, which is but 
 a romantic survival of the early beliefs of man connected 
 with streams and water. Even at the present day, in 
 many of the rivers of Germany, to bathe at a particular 
 time during St. John's Day at midsummer is an exception- 
 ally rash and dangerous proceeding. These beliefs are 
 found along the Necker and the Saale. St. John himself 
 has really become a river god, or has taken the place of 
 one and is, as Frazer tells us, especially greedy at Cologne, 
 where he requires fourteen victims, seven of whom must 
 be drowned in the river, and seven more who must break 
 their necks by climbing. This second sacrifice shows 
 that St. John has also replaced a tree spirit. 
 
 We should entirely misconceive the evolution of 
 ancient thought if we considered all this was nothing 
 but a result of the romantic imagination. It is hardly 
 going too far to say that there is nothing romantic,
 
 ORIGIN OF THERAPEUTIC BATHING 209 
 
 however beautiful if may seem, which has not directly 
 descended from the darkest superstition. In a short 
 space it may be hard to convince the incredulous that 
 bathing was wholly unnatural to primitive man, but 
 they may, at least, admit that there is sufficient reason 
 for suspecting that, however necessary water might be 
 in the dawn of humanity, and perhaps because it was so 
 necessary, it was looked upon as highly dangerous. How 
 then did bathing and washing arise if this was the case ? 
 It is not straining logic to infer that both were the result 
 of the very power of water which was feared, for to the 
 untrained imagination the very things most to be dreaded, 
 if managed by a skilful wizard, become the most efficacious 
 aids to health or success in life. All members of the medical 
 profession still represent the great magical element in the 
 human mind as distinguished from the essentially religious, 
 and may be said to take somewhat similar views as regards 
 drugs as the early magician took with regard to the em- 
 ployment of dangerous natural agents or evil spirits. 
 Those who prescribe arsenic, prussic acid, and many 
 dangerous alkaloids, should certainly be able to understand 
 the attitude of the early magician or medicine man who, 
 having discovered the powers of a given spirit, or the 
 vehicle in which it inhered, proceeded to employ it in 
 definitely arranged doses of ritual. Among magicians 
 there were also such differences of opinion and practice 
 as are seen in modern medicine, for although bathing in 
 many parts of Europe is forbidden, or regarded as daring 
 on Midsummer Day, yet in certain places, especially in 
 Sweden, to bathe on the night between Midsummer Eve 
 and Midsummer Day is especially healthy and curative. 
 So some physicians uphold Nauheim, others denounce 
 it and all its pretensions. It is certainly held in Sweden 
 14
 
 210 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 that on this particular night water has extraordinary 
 magical therapeutic qualities. In the old days such a 
 midnight bath was especially supposed to strengthen the 
 legs. It may, then, surely be taken for granted that wash- 
 ing was originally an unnatural and special process. It 
 should not be difficult to show doctors that it is still as 
 hard to convert the uneducated on this point as on that 
 of ventilation, since, as students, they have had to attend 
 their due number of outside midwifery cases. What then 
 was the reason for washing, and how did bathing and 
 swimming become a custom ? We may say definitely that 
 all contact with water, except that used for drinking, and 
 perhaps even that, was definitely purificatory or medicinal 
 or magical. Even the still surviving " grace before meat " 
 is probably a protective incantation. But long before 
 such ideas arose primitive man held that all natural agencies 
 were infinitely suggestible. He hypnotized them with 
 ritual, and they did what they were told to do if the rite 
 was properly performed. Balneologists may therefore 
 look upon themselves as recognized descendants of those 
 ancient practitioners who employed powerful and dangerous 
 waters in early magical therapeutics. 
 
 The history of evolution, as read in the scanty but 
 pregnant documents of anthropology, is difficult to decipher. 
 It resembles an organism which shows obscurely by rudi- 
 mentary and dwindling mechanisms the processes of past 
 growth. Yet some things are sure. In the million or 
 two million years of the life of man the animistic and pre- 
 animistic periods cannot be divided. Both theories survive 
 still, and if animism is perishing, and the magician's view 
 is crescent once more with the advance of science not 
 falsely so-called, it will take immense eras of time before 
 it becomes dominant. It is, therefore, not inconsistent
 
 I 
 
 ORIGIN OF THERAPEUTIC BATHING 211 
 
 with facts to mix " spirit " with water pure and simple, 
 when these problems are dealt with. Some of the beliefs 
 of existing, or lately existing, savage races show this con- 
 fusion plainly, and the highest authorities do not always 
 find it possible to distinguish between 1,000,000 or 2,000,000 
 B.C. Whatever the evidence was the truth would still be 
 a matter of doubt, for even what happened yesterday 
 may be a matter of conflict to-day. Yet we cannot scorn 
 evidence which is written in the very nature of the human 
 brain. 
 
 Sacred wells are found all over the world. It is obvious 
 that they are now sacred because they are inhabited by 
 powerful spirits, or presided over by conquering saints who 
 displaced their predecessors ; but it must be remembered 
 that spirit is no more than a hypothesis to account for 
 the powers and actions of any given thing, seeing that 
 according to savage theory nothing can happen, as we say, 
 " of itself." To such a degree has the belief in the magical 
 efficacy and danger of water been impressed on man- 
 kind, that many people appear to have instincts concern- 
 ing it or, if not instincts, certain semi-instinctive nervous 
 affections which, without any particular reason or, so 
 far as can be discovered, without any definite cause, 
 become affections resembling phobias. If it is possible 
 to discover by analysis in psycho-therapeutics the deeply 
 hidden underlying cause of many nervous affections, it 
 may be that some disciple of Freud might be able to prove 
 to me that my own dread of deep or hidden running 
 waters is not instinctive but curable by discovery. Never- 
 theless, at the age of four or five, I had a peculiar horror 
 of wells. Even now I cannot approach a deep or dark 
 one without mental disturbance. This is not due to the 
 fear of depth or the mere possibility of losing my life by
 
 212 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 falling into it. When a seaman, I had no fear of going 
 aloft, and when climbing in the Alps in later life I have 
 been suspended by a rope over a precipice three thousand 
 feet in depth without any sense of alarm. But even now, 
 hidden running water affects me with fear, and I recollect 
 that when, as a boy of twelve, I read a story in which 
 murdered people were disposed of by being dropped 
 through a trap-door in the floor of a house situated over 
 a running stream I was deeply, and possibly permanently, 
 affected. Such phobias, whether instinctive or the result 
 of sunk and forgotten stimuli, are not infrequent. It 
 seems possible that there is some instinct in man with 
 regard to water, its dangers, its evil or beneficent effects, 
 and that this instinct is against bathing, not for it. 
 
 Among savages, as we might reasonably expect, water 
 cannot only achieve miracles, but is also liable to be 
 affected by the conduct of men and, especially, the con- 
 duct of women. The savage ideas with regard to men- 
 struation are familiar to all. Some remnants of it, as 
 we know, still exist among civilized races ; but in certain 
 parts of the world a woman in that condition is obliged 
 to purify herself in other ways than by bathing, for if 
 she did bathe she would destroy the fish and dry up the 
 river. By the stern reasoning of the uncultivated early 
 mind contagious magic of this sort is carried to odd but, 
 in its way, logical extremes. Such a woman in many 
 places is forbidden to eat fish. This particular taboo is 
 only found among races where fish is of importance. In 
 most cases the use of water for purification seems to be 
 imperative. If menstruation is dangerous and deadly, 
 childbirth, in many cases, is still more so, and a mis- 
 carriage or a still-born child is something that requires 
 more rites and more water than any other feminine
 
 ORIGIN OF THERAPEUTIC BATHING 213 
 
 phenomenon. Among some African tribes a concealed 
 miscarriage seems to be more deadly than anything, and 
 a woman who has procured abortion can kill a man by 
 lying with him. The medicine man makes a great deal 
 of this, as we can guess. Earth from the spot upon which 
 she has buried the child has to be put into the river, 
 while the place itself is sprinkled with water, and she has 
 to wash for several days with water in which earth has 
 been mingled. After that we shall all have rain again. 
 From examples of this kind, and many others to be found 
 in Frazer's Golden Bough, it may be inferred that much 
 of the use of water is sympathetic magic to get rain, 
 while it must be remembered that any unseemly and 
 wrong act of man or woman may not only dry up the 
 springs, but the very sky. There are, of course, many 
 means of ensuring rain. Twins are especially powerful 
 in this branch of medicine, and can readily be obtained 
 by physicians. On ancient principles it might be argued 
 that there would be little danger of drought if obstet- 
 ricians, meteorologists, and balneologists worked in com- 
 bination, although, in many cases among certain tribes 
 twins are regarded as a highly dangerous and abnormal 
 product : they are even killed in order to get rid of them. 
 Since water is so dangerous and powerful, washing 
 of any kind often appears to be something of a ceremony. 
 It is not therefore wonderful that washing the head, the 
 most important part of the body, is a very serious matter 
 among many races, even those called civilized. Among 
 the poor a bath of any kind appears to be an ordeal, not 
 a luxury. In Siam one observer knew a native preacher 
 who washed his head monthly. The whole process took 
 three days, one for preparation, one for the tremendous 
 act, and the third for recovery. In old days the King
 
 214 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 of Persia had his head washed once a year. Roman 
 ladies washed their heads every thirteenth of August 
 upon Diana's day. It is probable that the rareness of 
 such an act and such a choice of time show that there was 
 magic in the ceremony. It was believed by the early 
 Greeks that Juno bathed once a year for the especial 
 purpose of restoring her virginity. Even if the legend 
 is poetic, it must have been founded on some ancient 
 belief. It is, perhaps, regrettable that, even among the 
 poets, there appears to be no reference to Jove's reflec- 
 tions on the subject. Bathing is a common act with many 
 tribes before hunting. The Kyaks of Burmah bathe by 
 day and night for eight days before they hunt the panther, 
 and naturally enough bathe afterwards to get rid of the 
 panther's influence and avenging spirit. Bathing as a 
 rain charm is even now found in many parts of Europe, 
 especially in Russia. It is instructive to notice that in 
 many cases the most effectual charm is to throw some- 
 body into the water. This appears an obvious relic of 
 the time when human beings were sacrificed to rivers, 
 streams, and the sky which gives rain. In Armenia the 
 charm consists in throwing the priest's wife into the 
 water. In the Islands of Celebes in Melanesia a priest 
 bathes in order to procure rain. It is a common thing 
 to drench the lame, blind, and infirm, with water. This 
 certainly brings rain and, if the wet and afflicted victim 
 curses with great vigour, no doubt the water hears the 
 better, and the charm is all the more effective. For, 
 god or no god, it is highly intelligent, and not only 
 intelligent, but both kindly and savage. 
 
 It appears sometimes possible to insult a spring or 
 outrage a river and procure floods. In the Canary 
 Islands the Guanche priestesses used to beat the sea
 
 ORIGIN OF THERAPEUTIC BATHING 215 
 
 with rods when there was a drought. This was very 
 efficacious, for it rose up in waves which probably 
 caused the winds which brought clouds and rain. If 
 man's native capacity for putting the cart before the 
 horse, which is still the chief stumbling-block to science, 
 be considered, this should surprise no one. In 
 Sumatra and other eastern islands, when rain is needed, 
 crowds of women go into pools and splash each other. 
 When we see a number of boys doing this in our own 
 country they are no doubt likely to cause a great deal 
 of rain, for the ritual is very powerful. All we have to 
 do to bring rain is to treat water in the right way. That 
 is the essence of magic, for the water knows all about it, 
 and perhaps occasionally confides in a special medicine 
 man what the real trick is which will compel him to 
 increase his floods. However intelligent the water may 
 be, careful study will make man its master. Bathing 
 before marriage among the Greeks was a magic fer- 
 tilizing ceremony, for water is necessary to the growth 
 of all the fruits of the earth. At Troy, down to 
 classical times, maidens about to marry bathed in the 
 Scamander, familiar to us in the Iliad, and said to 
 the river god, " Scamander, take my virginity." As 
 Frazer points out, this sometimes led to young men 
 bathing at the same time, and if there were any untoward 
 results they were fathered on the river god. In this 
 way demi-gods seems to have arisen easily enough, since 
 a river or a stream is a very powerful deity, and, like 
 most other gods, gets his best effects through his 
 generative powers. There are signs of this in all 
 religions, though the notion may be highly sublimated. 
 It was common in many cases for women to be given 
 to the river, or sacrificed in it, for if he could be
 
 216 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 afforded the opportunity of fertilizing them he would 
 be all the more powerful in fertilizing the earth. It may 
 be that there are still gods about some of those springs 
 which are held to cure sterility and impotence, at Orezza 
 it may be, and perhaps at Buxton, Wildbad, and Gastein. 
 There some magical balneologists call confidently on the 
 radium emanation which must have been a powerful 
 water spirit even in earlier times. There may be a sub- 
 stratum of truth in the most extravagant magic or myth. 
 It was said above that, in some senses, nothing that 
 we can do is really natural. If then bathing was 
 originally unnatural and dangerous, especially to those 
 who could not swim, and found water and water spirits 
 deadly, it remains to be shown how superstition of all 
 kinds led by devious paths to washing, to purification 
 and fertilizing purposes, and hence by slow degrees to 
 medicinal uses, and finally to purposes of cleanliness. 
 Primitive man never washed to be clean, he washed to get 
 rid of some influence and, in spite of his ignorance and 
 his mistaken magical views, there is, in many of these 
 savage customs, essential Tightness, almost scientific 
 accuracy. If the method of trial and error, handled 
 intelligently, is the main source of most advances in 
 knowledge, magic often hits the actual truth. In Mexico 
 the Huichol Indians during a drought take water from 
 a sacred spring and carry it a long distance to the sea. 
 Water from the sea is carried and put into the spring. 
 Now, why is this done ? Is it possible that no one sees 
 the reason at once ? The water in its alien surround- 
 ings will obviously be uneasy and uncomfortable and 
 rise in vapour. What can be more natural than that ? 
 The water tries to get home, but both clouds of expat- 
 riated vapour meet in the heavens, cause clouds, and
 
 ORIGIN OF THERAPEUTIC BATHING 217 
 
 fall as rain. Here actual facts are mixed with pure 
 animism and magic, for sea and river renew each other 
 in a perpetual cycle. It is difficult to get away from 
 proper magic. With knowledge man can do any- 
 thing. By killing a so-called heaven bird the Zulus 
 make the very sky weep. 
 
 Of course many ceremonies for rain are properly 
 religious, not magical. They appeal humbly to the 
 ear of gods. This, however, is a late and a degenerate 
 plan. It is much better to be a sturdy magician, and 
 get the best of the many powers of water or of nature 
 by manly personal efforts. But enough has been said 
 to show that the savage mind, even of to-day, does not 
 regard water merely as a useful liquid. The physicists 
 say it is a mixture of hydrol, dihydrol, and trihydrol, and 
 they assert, moreover, that trihydrol or ice must exist 
 even in steam. This may be wonderful, but primitive 
 man knew long ago that water was a very dangerous 
 and wonderful fluid, capable of pulling the leg of any one 
 who swam in it. He knew it could even talk and 
 converse. Even now those of us who are not magicians 
 can fish a running stream and hear it utter faint lost 
 words, although they do not understand what it says, 
 and cannot control it. With a real magician it has to 
 behave, but as there were few thoroughly instructed 
 magicians, even in the most ancient times, not many 
 will insist that primitive man went for his morning dip 
 as a matter of course. Water had to be watched and 
 learnt. It was best for a bather to take a magician with 
 him when he swam. For some people it is even now 
 best to take one when bathing in the sea, or he may be 
 sent for to try artificial respiration. It may be said 
 that nothing whatever comes by nature. All assurance
 
 218 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 in the face of any dangerous phenomenon is acquired 
 with danger and difficulty. Habit and customs arise by 
 disaster and repair, for both are, in essence, construction. 
 
 It can now be perceived how all these mixed and 
 mingled ceremonies for magic purification by water 
 gradually crystallized into habits. Little by little 
 results occurred which were not foreseen either by 
 initiate or hierophant. People gradually get ."> like 
 water. Among some races swimming seems on the way 
 to become truly instinctive. Any great progress of 
 man has almost always arisen through accident or as a 
 side-effect. All doctors are or should be professors of 
 sanitation ; and cleanliness, however it arises, has good 
 results. In parts of the Pacific sanitary science may 
 be said to have arisen from the practice of malignant 
 sorcerers burning nahak or food refuse belonging to some 
 one in the community. By contagious magic anything 
 with which a man has been in contact is part of himself ; 
 it can therefore be hurt or tortured, and the man himself 
 will be ill. Certain malignants who understood this 
 used to go about villages and pick up little bits of some 
 discarded orange or banana skin. They were burnt with 
 ceremonies, and those who were ill sent presents to the 
 sorcerer to stop his enchantments. As a result people 
 were careful to be clean. When I was in Apia I 
 remember quite well that it seemed remarkably well kept. 
 So sanitary science arrives blindfold. It was created by 
 a desire to avoid the possible evil of magic, while bathing 
 comes no doubt out of people's desire to use its good 
 effects of purification. The loss of magic may be a 
 disaster. It is for men of science to bring it back 
 purified as by water. 
 
 If living water, with all its senses and powers of
 
 ORIGIN OF THERAPEUTIC BATHING 219 
 
 magic, and the later water gods, must be reckoned 
 dangerous in the sea and deep rivers and pools, it is 
 naturally enough regarded as holy and beneficent, though 
 very delicate in its taste, in hot, dry countries. Rivers 
 are obviously capable of fertilizing the whole country. 
 By their fertilizing influences the feminine land pro- 
 duces fruit. If that is so, why should they not fertilize 
 women ? In the East many rivers are capable of actual 
 procreation as I pointed out before. Women there- 
 fore who are barren take to bathing in order to obtain 
 offspring. If there are sturdy guardians of the sacred 
 water they may possibly help a little at times. The 
 virtue of wells, which leads to washing and bathing as 
 a cure for barrenness, is known even in England and 
 Scotland. In Northumberland there is a sulphur spring 
 which used to work wonders in this way, and may be 
 effective still for all I know. It is highly probable that 
 chalybeate springs, such as Orezza in Corsica, gained 
 this reputation justly in the case of the anaemic. Since 
 religion took part in the ritual of life the priesthood, 
 the later clergy even, have done their best with pagan 
 beliefs, and therefore many of those old efficacious pagan 
 wells became the property of saints. Not only magic but 
 religion also works wonders. When they act hand in hand 
 something is bound to happen. In India sterility is, of 
 course, caused by evil spirits. In some places if a surgeon 
 were to cure sterility by special surgical methods, he 
 might actually find himself deified locally, just as General 
 Nicholson, who died so nobly at Delhi, was deified 
 on the frontier. It is quite possible that a quasi-deifi- 
 cation or apotheosis takes place nowadays with some 
 popular doctors. In other forms the human mind works 
 as it did of old.
 
 220 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 The views dimly adumbrated suggest that all bath- 
 ing, medicinal or purificatory, is due to the original fear 
 of and belief in the living nature of water, and that the 
 reputation of all old baths or bathing, now held to be 
 curative, was originally due to magic, is strongly sup- 
 ported by certain facts I observed while in British 
 Columbia. Although there are comparatively few Indians 
 nowadays in the dry belt about Kamloops, those 
 of the Thompson Indians who still exist retain many 
 or most of the beliefs of their ancestors. I was 
 acquainted with few of them, but while working some 
 miles from Kamloops I discovered among the brush when 
 I went fishing some edifices looking like teepees or little 
 wigwams by the side of the stream. They were con- 
 structed of sticks running up to a point at the top, teepee 
 shape, and were big enough to contain a man sitting 
 in a crouching position. Just under him a hollow was 
 scraped. On inquiry an Indian woman told me that 
 they were Indian sweat-houses or, as they are other- 
 wise named, keekwillie holes, usually contracted by 
 whites into kegly, which by itself means " low." She 
 told me that as far as she was aware they were used for 
 medicinal purposes, and I have no doubt that in this 
 she was correct but, as I have discovered since, and 
 some of the evidence is to be found in The Golden Bough, 
 they were not originally constructed for any such pur- 
 pose. The way they were used was this. A man or 
 woman got inside them in a crouching position. Water 
 was poured into the hole above which the patient sat, 
 a rug or buffalo robe was draped over the entrance, 
 while the squaws outside heated stones in a fire, and 
 when they were red-hot rolled them into the water. 
 That a like bath in certain cases of arthritis, or so-
 
 ORIGIN OF THERAPEUTIC BATHING 221 
 
 called rheumatic affections, may do good is certain; 
 but it is quite impossible to believe that such a mode 
 of healing was discovered except through generations 
 of trial and error undertaken for other purposes. The 
 original reason of such a ceremony arose from the desire 
 to free widows or widowers from the probable results of 
 contact with death. They required purification, and for 
 this purpose they sweated for hours, and then were 
 plunged, or plunged themselves, into the neighbouring 
 creek, after which they rubbed themselves with small 
 branches of spruce which had been stuck into the 
 ground close to the little teepee. There is no more 
 striking instance of the way in which magic at purificatory 
 ceremonies might easily have become measures of pure 
 therapeutics. Such a complete series of vaso-motor 
 and peripheral stimuli may well have helped to cure 
 grief. No real anthropologist will fall into the modern 
 error of believing grief " natural." It is due, as the 
 fathers of man knew only too well, to the actual influences 
 emanating from the dead, or their active spirits. In 
 view of such facts I think it may legitimately be in- 
 ferred that curative baths of every kind began by the 
 practice of magic, and that all such processes were re- 
 inforced gradually, as magic gave way to religion, by 
 religious purificatory methods. These same Thompson 
 River Indians were accustomed if they touched the dead 
 to bathe instantly, or as soon as possible afterwards. 
 Where these keekwillie holes do not exist widows and 
 widowers were still obliged to bathe. Bereaved persons, 
 even in modern times, are also compelled to pass four 
 times through a patch of wild rose bushes in order to 
 rid themselves of the ghost. Not only this, but it 
 is still customary among these people to cut branches
 
 222 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 of the thorny rose bushes and put them in their bed or 
 blankets in order to prevent the spirit returning to its 
 old night quarters. 
 
 When the light that is thrown upon the natural 
 working of the human mind is considered, it seems that 
 the study of anthropology might well be made part, 
 even if a late part, of the training undergone by the 
 student of medicine. The old-fashioned psychology 
 founded on introspection, which depends for the imaginary 
 validity of its conclusions on the understanding of 
 words, though still taught, might be dispensed with to 
 the advantage of all concerned. Words alone, as 
 progress is made from one verbal statement to another, 
 inevitably lead to wrong conclusions by the very 
 logical processes that they imply. It was for this reason, 
 this double use among men of science of their own ter- 
 minology and the psychological use of words with all 
 their possibilities of error, that led to experiments on 
 conditioned reflexes. Such work tends to show that 
 all intellectual labour is, in its essence and in actual 
 method, a series of reflexes responding to the peculiar 
 environment of the worker. The study of anthropology 
 may have very far-reaching results on the knowledge 
 not only of ancient practices, but also on the conception 
 of the brain as a mechanism. In all the branches of 
 magic touched on, the fact is seen that mentation acts 
 with astounding regularity, by way of definite irresist- 
 ible reflexes following upon certain definite stimuli. Time 
 and time again, in far distant places between which 
 there has been no possibility of communication, new but 
 similar practices arise. This cannot be explained on any 
 theory but that of the human brain reacting definitely 
 on like stimuli. There is no distinction to be drawn
 
 ORIGIN OF THERAPEUTIC BATHING 223 
 
 between chemical reaction in one part of the world and 
 the other, provided that the temperature, and perhaps the 
 barometric pressure, are alike. But a study of anthro- 
 pology must lead to the influence that the biochemical 
 reactions of the brain, the complexities of which we have 
 simplified unduly by calling them " the mind," are, if we 
 take into consideration the infinitely greater complexities 
 of cerebration, upon the same level of certainty as mere 
 chemical reactions. If this is so, anthropology itself will 
 be of the greatest assistance in understanding the why and 
 wherefore of all human cerebral development. One science 
 helps another, for it carries a lamp ; but when these lamps 
 help each other the light may indeed be great. 
 
 Frazer has himself pointed out with much force that 
 many of the soundest customs of humanity have sprung 
 out of magic. But if it is true that all human progress, 
 like scientific progress, depends on hypothesis and trial and 
 error, hit or miss, no one need be surprised to learn that in 
 many cases practices have arisen from magic which were, 
 or might be, deadly to the race which practised them. 
 Although it may be said that the whole essence of immunity 
 lies in the phrase, " a hair of the dog that bit you," there 
 are ways of taking the hair which may be destructive. 
 In a cholera epidemic in Egypt some forty years ago, or 
 perhaps more, a peculiarly holy man died of that disease. 
 It was obviously necessary to wash his sacred body. It 
 was therefore taken to a neighbouring pool and duly cleansed 
 by his ardent followers and admirers. It will not surprise 
 even those who have hitherto taken no interest in magic if 
 it is suggested that so holy a man by his contact with the 
 water must have given it virtues of his own. This, at any 
 rate, was obvious to his followers, for, procuring utensils of 
 various kinds, they bottled a portion of this holy water and
 
 224 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 took it home and drank it. The results, from a medical 
 point of view, were deadly. Perhaps from the religious 
 standpoint they were held to be efficacious when his trans- 
 lated followers j oined their leader in Paradise. It is possible 
 to conceive that many tribes in the history of the world 
 when they made a miss in their experiments did not re- 
 cognize it, and by repeating it wiped themselves out. 
 A fool is rewarded according to his folly, and wisdom is only 
 the recognition of results. 
 
 Something was said above about the general views 
 held on animism, or the savage theory which imagines all 
 things whatsoever have their moving spirits. This is 
 not a primitive belief, for the idea of spirit is an abstract 
 notion. Before the evolving human brain was capable 
 of such an abstraction, man no doubt held the view that 
 all things like themselves were alive. So deeply rooted is 
 animism in the human mind that its last faint remains can 
 be seen in many men of scientific eminence who cannot rid 
 themselves of the theory of vitalism. The savage vitalistic, 
 or animistic, view was a simplifying hypothesis, and like 
 all unverified hypotheses led to extraordinary results, not 
 all of them without danger. But many were certainly 
 sound. All tabooed and unclean foods are held by anthro- 
 pologists to have been originally sacred. They were living 
 gods. This is undoubtedly the case with the pig, and in 
 those cases where its once sacred totem qualities have 
 degenerated into dislike and a taboo, such a degeneration 
 in hot countries may have been for the good of the race. 
 It may even be said that it would have been better if 
 some of the notions of the Eskimos had survived among 
 other races. Among them it is forbidden to mingle differ- 
 ent and various flesh foods in one full stomach. The 
 gods and goddesses of the different animals would be
 
 ORIGIN OF THERAPEUTIC BATHING 225 
 
 offended by the alien contact. Such views are dietetically 
 valuable. In the same way the taboos concerning mourners 
 and the insistence on ritual washing are obviously whole- 
 some and scientific, as every bacteriologist would admit. 
 
 The whole story of the gradual evolution of medical 
 theory and practice from magic and religion is one of un- 
 surpassed interest which might well engage the life and 
 energies of any student. To such it would soon seem clear 
 that magic in its best and worst senses still exists in 
 medicine. It has not been got rid of by the decay and 
 passage of the older theory of signatures. But, even if 
 drugs are still exhibited on the merest grounds of tradition, 
 the fine magical qualities of human influence and sug- 
 gestion are every day better recognized, and therefore no 
 physician need look with contempt on his spiritual an- 
 cestors or even on his savage colleagues in far-off countries. 
 It would be as wrong to do so as to scorn Hippocrates, 
 Aristotle, or Galen because they did not know what are 
 commonplaces to a first year's student. There is no 
 new method of discovery and no real increase in the powers 
 of logic. Those who seek truth are no more than an 
 army marching in the dark led by the dimmest sense of 
 orientation. When that is reached which seems an insuper- 
 able obstacle their battalions hurl themselves against it, 
 and if one man finds a weak spot and overcomes the diffi- 
 culty he becomes a leader and is presently called a genius. 
 Such geniuses whose names and graves were forgotten a 
 million years ago helped to bring man through great 
 darkness, but not to any resting-place. It should be con- 
 solatory to every worker to remember that, even if he 
 has not the great and happy fortune to light a new lamp 
 in the world, his very errors and failures assist his fellows 
 and all mankind to avoid like disasters in the time to come. 
 15
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 IT may seem desirable to develop shortly what was said 
 in the last chapter on the subject of psychology. It 
 is a common and useful trick of the theologian to assert 
 that the physico-chemical view of " mental " action is 
 rapidly decaying. Such writers greet with enthusiasm 
 any popular and ignorant reaction, even though a similar 
 movement, if it militated against the loose hypothetical 
 explanations they favour, would be greeted with contempt. 
 Instead of yielding ground to the religious philosopher, those 
 who advocate so-called " materialism " are daily taking 
 positions from the introspectionists, and nothing but ignor- 
 ance of physiological advance permits them to believe 
 otherwise. The warfare in the body as construction 
 proceeds has its true analogues in the modification of theory. 
 It is true that certain leaders of thought have been carried 
 away by their instincts, but this is due to the fact that 
 many men of the highest eminence are only partially 
 educated. To think on the lines of one science alone is to 
 remain at the mercy of uncorrected traditional ideas in 
 many departments of thought. Such lack real mental 
 immunity. It therefore follows that not every man 
 of science has the scientific mind which takes for 
 granted the possibility of arranging all phenomena 
 whatsoever in ultimate order. With the region be-
 
 228 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 yond 'phenomena such a mind has no real concern : 
 noumena may be left as a playground for those who like 
 to waste their energy in those arrangements of words 
 which are dignified by the devotees of theological and 
 metaphysical jigsaw puzzles with the high-sounding name 
 of the " Philosophy of the Absolute." So far as the 
 problems of space and time are concerned they may be 
 dealt with by mathematicians, and what is said of them by 
 philosophers, with no knowledge of science, can be safely 
 ignored. Yet, owing to early influences, even men highly 
 endowed with the scientific spirit are apt in their haste 
 to give away to the enemy positions which afterwards 
 have to be recaptured at great cost. This has certainly 
 been the case with " the mystery of consciousness." 
 The many hundreds of years partially wasted in the 
 verbal gymnastics of the schoolmen and their modern 
 congeners and descendants have naturally left their 
 mark. That they were not wholly a waste may be ad- 
 mitted, since reasoning accurately even on empty major 
 premisses is a great mental exercise ; but so far as the 
 conclusions drawn became more than mere logical divi- 
 dends their effect has been harmful. To free the mind 
 from early impressions is never wholly possible, and the 
 assumptions of the nursery may partially determine the 
 mental action of the wisest, just as ancient instincts in a 
 race produce effects of which the cause may be totally 
 unknown. As a result it not unfrequently happens that 
 consciousness is admitted to be an ultimate mystery, 
 although every reaction of the brain points clearly to 
 the fact that it is but a definite, though highly delicate, 
 response to the internal and external environment. 
 Huxley himself, being then, no doubt, under the influence 
 of theories of mental and physical parallelism, incautiously
 
 PHYSIOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 229 
 
 admitted that the problems connected with it were im- 
 possible, or unlikely, to be solved. A very slight study 
 of the history of science reveals, however, that the prob- 
 lems which are incapable of solution frequently receive it 
 before the ink of the incredulous is dry, or, at least, before 
 it fades. 
 
 There is no need to go into the work done on cerebral 
 organization and construction. The names of Hunter, 
 Willis, Horsley, Hughlings Jackson, Gaskell, Head, and 
 Ferrier, to speak of but few, are sufficient witnesses 
 to the labour bestowed upon the brain. With regard, 
 however, to the special phenomena lumped together by 
 the use of the word " consciousness," it may, perhaps, be 
 admitted that Pavlov did, at the very least, just as useful 
 work. He reduced such obscurities as " states of con- 
 sciousness " into multiplex, or conditioned, reflexes, and 
 showed that the nomenclature of most psychologists was 
 at once otiose and misleading. It is too seldom observed 
 that the mysteries of " mind " are no more than the result 
 of ignoring physiology and the almost ineradicable in- 
 stinct of man to consider that a word represents a simple 
 thing. As soon, however, as " mental states " are resolved 
 into reflexes among some of the 10,000,000,000 cortical 
 neurons it becomes obvious that the word " mind " is no 
 more than shorthand for neuronal action and interaction 
 when influenced from the outside or by internal stimuli. 
 There is no such thing known in " consciousness " as the 
 brain acting as a whole. The cells may be, and probably 
 are always, in a state of tone, for they would otherwise 
 degenerate ; but very few of them can produce motor 
 reactions, of any kind, at the same time. Those reflexes 
 result in action, even the action of " thought," which are 
 stimulated to discharge, or at the least, excited to a state
 
 230 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 of tone almost sufficient to result in discharge. Tonus 
 being a state of readiness for activity, all nerves stimulated 
 by conduction from the discharging neurons may raise 
 verbal centres to a condition near to a like discharge. In 
 such cases we have verbal thinking, i.e. impulse not dis- 
 charged over motor tracts leading to speech. These 
 relations of raised or lowered tone, of inhibition or ex- 
 citation, are obviously neuronal functions, and all 
 " thought " is the impulse towards discharge in reactions, 
 forced, useful, or pleasant, under definite stimuli exciting 
 complex reflex arcs. 
 
 Such views, it seems, are easily grasped when we deal 
 with the lower animals, but many find it difficult to believe 
 that the poet's " consciousness " when he writes a poem 
 is in fact a reaction to his internal and external environ- 
 ment, and that the poem is truly as much a reaction 
 product as the bark of a dog or the spring of a tiger. 
 There is, however, no real gap discoverable between the 
 reflex responses of an amoeba, whose irritability as proto- 
 plasm is of the same order, though less specialized, as 
 that of a neuron, and all the spinal and cerebral reflexes 
 of a genius. Such reflexes are, however, more and more 
 complex and " conditioned," i.e. dependent on other 
 reflexes and much more easily inhibited. In such a case 
 inhibition probably means no more than a failure of 
 some synapse to act, while excitation which results in 
 such original graphic verbal reactions as a poem is the 
 functioning of new nerve dendrons hitherto not joined 
 up, and fresh combinations of older ones which have 
 functioned before. 
 
 Certainly the case for such conclusions has been of 
 late immeasurably strengthened by Pavlov. This physio- 
 logist was led to make his experiments by finding that
 
 PHYSIOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 231 
 
 the moment even physiologists touched " mental " 
 phenomena they adopted another language than that 
 used in their own work. He found by experiments on 
 the salivary glands that reflex excitations could be made 
 to depend on linked reflex excitations that is, by reflexes 
 conditioned by other reflexes. A dog's glands can be 
 educated to act not only by the presentation of food but 
 on the excitation of them by the sound of a bell. A bell 
 of a few more or less vibrations fails to produce salivary 
 action. A time factor can be introduced and the glands 
 made to act five minutes, say, after the bell is struck. 
 At each introduction of a new element into the linked 
 reflexes the process is more and more " conditioned," and 
 more and more easily interrupted by some accidental or 
 purposed stimulation. This complex of reflexes becomes 
 at last " intelligence." 
 
 It is commonly said that reflexes are nervous units. 
 It is, however, sounder to regard the real nervous, or 
 cerebral, or " mental " unit as the native irritability of 
 the cell. If this is so the rise from reaction in the cell to 
 a simple reflex, and from that to reflexes conditioned by 
 others, and further to the most complex set of reflexes 
 imaginable in the highest brain, should show no break. 
 That we are unable to foretell the reaction in the cases 
 of high reflex combinations goes for nothing. It is, 
 indeed, our incapacity to do so which shows the nature 
 of words. They are sound signals which produce or tend 
 to produce reactions, thus becoming, on this analysis, links 
 in reflex reactions. Their motor products depend entirely 
 on the nature and quality of the organism concerned. 
 Thus to mention the word " faery " in a mixed gathering 
 may produce a " fairy " story from one and induce 
 another to quote " perilous seas and faery lands forlorn."
 
 232 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 If then such compound conditioned reflexes are the 
 cortical apparatus for keeping in touch with the environ- 
 ment, with all its excitations and inhibitions, presented 
 to it at the moment, it is reflexly forced upon us to declare 
 that " consciousness " is the massed sensations of the 
 thinker, or such a complex of them as may be most strongly 
 stimulated. Since " memory " is nothing but the estab- 
 lishment of nervous tracts, and the act of memory a stimu- 
 lation passing over a particular synapse formerly opened 
 up, we can understand how " self -awareness," which is 
 really " memory," consists of a set of opened tracts which 
 stimulate other tracts, possibly motor ones, which finally 
 may pass into reflexly induced speech or writing. " Self- 
 awareness " thus sinks away from us on acting. That 
 pointed and consecutive speech, dealing with the situa- 
 tion, may occur reflexly, is obvious to those who have 
 seen operations performed under light anaesthesia in 
 which the reflexes are not abolished. The patient may 
 feel pain and abuse the surgeon in the vilest language. 
 The good public speaker is one who forgets himself, ceases 
 to be inhibited by fears as to his success, speaks over 
 short paths rather than long ones, and loses " self-aware- 
 ness " in semi-automatic or reflex emotional or logical 
 utterance. What he says is rapid adaptation to his 
 environment. 
 
 The difficulty experienced, even by some men of 
 scientific training, in accepting such views of " conscious- 
 ness " as are suggested above, is undoubtedly a reflex 
 cerebral state, induced in early life by the stimulation 
 or inhibition of words or repeated sound signals which 
 have established regularly working reflexes. They have 
 been taught to respond to these in a certain way, i.e. 
 their education has opened up tracts of nervous discharge
 
 PHYSIOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 233 
 
 which prevent further analysis by inhibiting the opening 
 of fresh neuronal paths. This is a phenomenon known 
 to psychiatrists as " resistance." But though " re- 
 sistance " to fresh stimulation taught in the shape of 
 combinations of word signs or sound symbols is frequently 
 accompanied with dislike of the " idea," by which we 
 must understand a new set of reactions, it may be with- 
 out any such dislike, and may represent only a temporary 
 incapacity, under the weak stimulation of an inadequate 
 verbal presentment of convincing analysis, to establish 
 new nervous connections. The difficulties of dealing 
 satisfactorily to all with such a subject, and the right 
 way to attempt it, may be suggested by considering that 
 the very word " convincing " just used is obviously 
 shorthand or a symbol for the reflex opening of fresh 
 neuronal paths which offer great synaptic resistance. 
 Such views explain the physiological reasons that it is so 
 difficult to convince the old. In them synaptic resistance 
 tends to become synaptic block. The opposed pheno- 
 menon is observed in fixed ideas, and in mania, where 
 over certain tracts there are what may be called " fused " 
 synapses in which the gemmules for pathological reasons 
 do not retract until exhaustion occurs. I suggest, then, 
 that when a man like Huxley, a very powerful stimulator, 
 asserts consciousness to be a mystery, such an asser- 
 tion is likely to inhibit speculation on the part of others, 
 such inhibition taking the form of saying, " if a brain 
 like Huxley's found it so, is it likely that I should ever 
 get to understand it ? " It must, however, be remembered 
 that the whole history of science might be mapped out 
 in a series of statements as too " impenetrable mysteries " 
 which have proved themselves capable of easy solution. 
 I remember being much struck by the objection of an
 
 234 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 otherwise capable man of science to a view of my own, 
 which was afterwards proved by experiment to be correct, 
 on the ground that if it were true it would have been 
 found out before. 
 
 The resistance or dislike to the analysis of conscious- 
 ness into combined conditioned reflexes seems particu- 
 larly strong where it deals with the emotions. To analyse 
 a religious attitude into reflex correspondence with an 
 imaginary or constructed environment, such construction 
 being in fact the co-ordination of rigid nervous tracts, 
 is regarded as "materialism," or a gross incapacity for 
 taking "spiritual" views. Such opinions, however, are 
 not worth combating, as they are usually held by those 
 without physiological knowledge. But those who merely 
 regard consciousness as a mystery, probably not capable 
 of solution, often find similar difficulties. They may say, 
 for instance, that though emotion and volition have their 
 concomitants in molecular changes in brain matter, no 
 material qualities, such as weight and occupancy of space, 
 can be predicated of them. An emotion, however, is 
 only a "mental" entity till it is discovered to be nervous 
 discharges over certain short circuits in the brain through 
 which the motor impulses of instincts have passed during 
 long stages of evolution, all such discharges being accom- 
 panied by vaso-motor phenomena. 
 
 If this is so, and no physiologist will deny it, space 
 and position, vascular dilation and contraction, and the 
 possible measurement of nervous discharges across resist- 
 ing synapses can actually be predicated of the highest 
 emotions. An emotion is thus no entity, it is not a thing 
 properly to be described in a word, though it may be 
 designated by such a symbol and act as such in a reflex 
 chain of suggestion : it is, in fact a very complex bodily
 
 PHYSIOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 235 
 
 and cerebral state, easily distinguished from a purely 
 "intellectual" state, which is a cortical process not going 
 on over ancient instinctive paths, but over the pyramidal 
 tract, through the cells of Betz, without as a rule any 
 vaso-motor disturbances. Such disturbances, however, 
 often follow upon intellectual discovery as the results 
 of attainment and, to speak in terms of energetics, of 
 energy suddenly freed. Kepler's emotion on being " freed ' ' 
 by his great discovery is a good example. 
 
 However little such an analysis may commend itself 
 to the more ancient psychologist who lives in a world 
 of words, it is certain that it is only upon such lines that 
 scientific explanation can proceed. It enables the physio- 
 logist to do work without being confused by the necessity 
 of defining terms relative to consciousness about which 
 no two philosophers are at one. So far as science is 
 concerned it may be taken for granted that cerebral re- 
 sponse to the internal and external environment, acting 
 reflexly to excitation and inhibition, is not correlated 
 with consciousness, but is actually consciousness itself, 
 including the subconscious and unconscious : the sub- 
 conscious being tracts in nervous tone which may easily 
 discharge themselves in motor reactions at any time if 
 normally stimulated, while the unconscious consists of 
 other tracts only resulting directly in motor reactions 
 under abnormal excitation or pathological conditions.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TRAINING AND ORGANIZATION l 
 
 IT may be that some of you were alarmed by the word 
 " Psychology " appearing in the title of a lecture 
 which you had orders to attend. Possibly it opened up 
 to you the prospect of illimitable boredom. I own that 
 it is a subject which, with very little care, can be made both 
 boring and obscure. Many writers when dealing with 
 the mind obtain the two results with ease. But straight- 
 forward psychology is not metaphysical word- juggling, 
 and I hope to make what I have to say as clear as orders 
 should be made by those who issue them. Psychology 
 is nothing more than the way our minds work, and I should 
 like you to remember that the word " mind " is just useful 
 shorthand for the working of the brain. All of us have 
 some notion of what affects us or leaves us cold. We 
 respond to stimulation, we act or refuse to act. You 
 know what you like and what you dislike. Perhaps you 
 even know why you are here at all. Certainly you would 
 not have been at a lecturer's mercy if you had not been 
 moved by your minds, your brains, towards common 
 national ends. Many different reasons may have in- 
 
 1 Lecture delivered at Purfleet Camp to the members of the O.T.C. 
 (Capt. B. C. Lake, O.C.) and the officers of the 7th Reserve Brigade. 1915. 
 Although it is not an integral portion of this book I have given it a place 
 for reasons which will possibly be obvious to those interested alike in 
 
 science and in psychology, now rapidly becoming a science. 
 
 337
 
 238 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 fluenced you, but on the whole I take it that what moved 
 you most was a sense of duty combined with a desire for 
 the splendid natural activity of a military life. Yet behind 
 all your feelings there was something else, something bigger 
 and something which, though really obscure, is not beyond 
 
 j comprehension. Most of us in life do things, and believe 
 we can say why. We use our intellect to make apologies 
 for our own actions, and sometimes succeed in the task to 
 our own satisfaction. And still we may wonder in our 
 hearts whether there was not some instinct in us that 
 
 ' was the real motive power. Again, many of you must 
 have felt the heavy weight of our economic civilization, 
 and to become a soldier is, in a way, to get back to nature. 
 You therefore come here to be trained, and to learn to 
 train others, in the very ancient organization called an 
 army. Busy as you may be, you should be free from many 
 of the worries besetting those who are all " on their own." 
 Discipline and control may obstruct some activities, but 
 they leave others free. Young men especially like change. 
 Here you certainly get it, sometimes to your surprise. 
 Besides these reasons for your actions there is the other 
 reason which I hope presently to make plain. As a hint, 
 it may be said that, though in some ways you are now 
 more yourselves than you ever seemed, in another and a 
 very strange and not unpleasing way you are less. You 
 will exercise powers you never had yet, and will be re- 
 strained in ways you would once have resented fiercely. 
 
 Let me phrase it plainly. You arc here as grist for 
 the military mill. You have to go through the machine. 
 The reason of many of the processes through which you 
 are put are probably obscure to you. Some seem a little 
 absurd, some too severe, some, perhaps, totally unintel- 
 ligible. You wonder why you are being trained in such
 
 TRAINING AND ORGANIZATION 239 
 
 a way, and why it takes so long. Yet, though you may 
 have found many of your experiences exasperating, the 
 experience of others has shown them to be just what is 
 needed. Your very exasperation is part of your course. 
 You have to control it. Being put under arrest has helped 
 to make many things clear to those who can learn. Not 
 all of your superiors know the deep mental, or cerebral, 
 side of the processes of training and organization but, 
 since an army is a continuing live organism, they have 
 tradition, military history, and their own experience in 
 the making of a company or battalion, which show them 
 that certain results follow on the adoption of particular 
 methods. We all use words and phrases of which the 
 real meaning may be unknown to us. We often employ 
 the French phrase, and speak of esprit de corps as the end 
 and aim of training. The " spirit," as we say, makes 
 the body live and makes it one. This is shorthand, but 
 it is true. Every soldier knows it, but not every one could 
 tell us why, even if he has p.s.c. after his name. If our 
 methods are right our reasons may not matter. But as 
 no methods are perfect, even when moulded by age-long 
 tradition, knowledge of underlying causes may help to 
 improve them. 
 
 I spoke of an army as an organism. It exists as a 
 body, it has members, tools, a brain, a nervous system, 
 and all are used to ensure that certain effects are produced. 
 An army, too, can suffer and rejoice. It can become irre- 
 sistible by continued success ; it can suffer panic, and it 
 can die. These words are not mere illustrations. You 
 and your officers and men are living parts of a living thing, 
 even though the staff may never trouble to look upon an 
 army in that light. They may not be so self-conscious. 
 Perhaps that is all the better for them. It is best not to
 
 240 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 think of ourselves. Note well then when a part of an army 
 begins to think only of itself, and by itself, there is danger 
 of disaster, perhaps of dissolution. A healthy man never 
 thinks about himself as parts. Only sick people do that. 
 When all things work together easily that is health. Your 
 officers know this is true of a company or a battalion, and 
 of themselves. If the nervous system is out of hand, the 
 whole body goes to pieces. They are the nervous system 
 of the part they command, just as the Headquarters 
 Staff is of the whole. It is well to know this, but not to 
 brood on it. Knowledge should sink in and become 
 wisdom a proved instinct. If the Staff knows this prac- 
 tically it will work all the better, with greater certainty. 
 If there is friction and separation at Headquarters the 
 whole body suffers. 
 
 Now, although the training and organization of an 
 army make a special branch of study, all organized bodies 
 can be analysed by similar methods. At first it may 
 seem difficult for you to understand that there is a real 
 resemblance, a true analogy, between the workings of a 
 committee or corporation of any kind and an army. 
 Nevertheless it is true that an army is something very 
 different from the individuals who compose it, just as a 
 committee or any corporate body is different from its 
 members. An organized body with a head and subor- 
 dinates will do things which none of its members would 
 or could attempt. Motives affect it differently. The whole 
 is another thing than the units. If the motives and 
 stimuli affecting it are of a high and noble order this 
 organized body will move instinctively towards great 
 things that might not have moved its members singly. 
 Their better instincts are appealed to. They would be 
 ashamed to show they think of themselves. In such an
 
 TRAINING AND ORGANIZATION 241 
 
 atmosphere a mean man may become generous. When 
 he has gone away he may be himself again, and contemplate 
 the counterfoil in his cheque-book with rueful astonish- 
 ment. If the motives moving such a body are not high 
 but, let us say, purely financial, it may, on the other hand, 
 do things which come to be regarded by the very men who 
 voted for them as utterly detestable from their individual 
 point of view. Conceivably such a corporation might 
 discharge an old servant without pension, and the very 
 man who moved the resolution might possibly support him 
 afterwards. For such reasons, however shortly and roughly 
 presented to you, we may infer that any organized body 
 is a real organism because it acts differently from its units, 
 and has different motives and different ends. Purely 
 individual training is useless for bringing out the qualities 
 and powers for which such a body has been created. 
 
 Such considerations as these have a great application to 
 your physical training. Many of you thought you were 
 well and strong when you came here. Perhaps you know 
 now that you were neither. You have found out what 
 health is. It is being all one, it is forgetting you have parts, 
 since all things in you work together. A breakdown in 
 your health might mean a breakdown months hence in 
 the moral health of a platoon, and a disaster. Your 
 physical well-being is essential not only to yourselves. 
 There are glands in your body which give you courage 
 in emergencies. If the adrenal glands fail you might be 
 cowards. When training reaches a high pitch and you 
 feel the strain of it you will remember that a greater strain 
 must come on you later. That is why an army is trained 
 severely and the incapable are weeded out. A breakdown 
 of one may mean the breakdown of many. In the face 
 of difficulty we need to be well and strong, and cheerful 
 16
 
 242 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 companions. Thus we give out encouragement as a gland 
 may yield powerful stimulation in danger. 
 
 You will see then that the beginnings of organization 
 exist in all of us : in the whole human race. We are 
 gregarious, unless we are ill ; we commonly associate 
 together for ends that appeal to us ; we form clubs and 
 societies. It is in our nature to do so. Without desire 
 of common action there could be no social life and no pro- 
 gress. Altruism, or thought for others, exists in us all, 
 though perhaps only as a seed : we are always prepared 
 to make some kind of sacrifice for common ends. We 
 cannot live alone. 
 
 Many of you here have been Public School boys. 
 English schoolmasters maintain that the chief end of a 
 school is not direct preparation for actual life but the pro- 
 duction of character. How far they succeed I should not 
 like to say in this place, but so far as they do it is 
 because the boys are trained to work in teams and 
 taught to sacrifice their ease and leisure, and even their 
 hopes of distinction, to the honour and glory of their 
 school. So the essential thing is not mere production of 
 what is commonly called an upright character. Such a 
 person may be incapable of working with others. What is 
 wanted is the production of a character as a fit part of an 
 organization which can subdue all self-regarding instincts 
 and impulses. If a young cricketer is a sound member of 
 his school, being turned down for the First Eleven may, 
 indeed, be bitter, but if he recognizes it as just he takes it, 
 as we say, like a man. For to be " like a man " is a great 
 thing. It implies endurance, courage, self-restraint. Such 
 a boy learns to trust in the judgment of others who have 
 proved themselves, and he knows that loud revolt is not 
 playing the game. Submission of this order is necessary
 
 TRAINING AND ORGANIZATION 243 
 
 to all of us, but most of all to soldiers. We see that in a 
 good school there are all the rough essentials of organ- 
 ization and training. It is a corporate body, and the boys 
 when at school are different from what they are at home. 
 They think differently and feel differently, and that means 
 they are different. Thus parents and schoolmasters may 
 have very different opinions of the same boy, and what is 
 more, the parent may be right if his son chooses some more 
 solitary profession, while the master may be right if the 
 boy goes into the army or navy. Many of you, no doubt, 
 remember the sense of loyalty to your own school which 
 grew up in spite of the brutality of a few of your fellows, 
 and also in spite of the peculiar hostility which you felt 
 towards some, if not all, the masters. And yet, if they 
 were at all decent, you would have been ready to maintain 
 they were better " beasts " than those of any other school. 
 This feeling of semi-hostility between the trainer and the 
 trained is, perhaps, essential for good results. It implies 
 resisting stuff in those who are being moulded and organized. 
 With good tools you can forge anything out of steel, but not 
 much can be made of putty. 
 
 Possibly you now begin to recognize some strange 
 resemblance between your own feelings as officers in train- 
 ing with those you had as a schoolboy. Day by day you 
 are learning to suppress that part of yourself which for ever 
 contends you have the right to do exactly as you please. 
 You do not go about insisting on your rights. It is not 
 good form to do so, and that means it does not really pay 
 any one to be selfish. Perhaps, too, you have begun to 
 see why you must be young to be trained. The very old 
 are mostly set and rigid, and cannot easily rid them- 
 selves of ancient ideas. At any school a boy who has not 
 been trained to obedience at home has a hard time before
 
 244 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 he learns that somebody a year his senior is not only 
 likely to tell him to do a thing but to see that it gets done. 
 In training for the army there is, of course, a great advance 
 of thought over a school, for you come here duly prepared 
 to surrender your personalities or part of them. But 
 even so it is in many cases a very difficult process. You 
 recognize that it is necessary, but perhaps you do not see the 
 mental side of things which makes it necessary. Yet to 
 know why makes all things easy. I dare say you have 
 already compared in your minds the curious semi-hostility 
 there often is between the combatant branches and the 
 Staff of an army with that between schoolmasters and their 
 pupils of which I spoke just now. The masters initiate 
 and carry on a process of limiting natural freedom. The 
 resulting hostility, or armed neutrality, is, in its way, a 
 good thing. It inspires action and emulation. When a 
 thing is inevitable, if it can be turned to good so much the 
 better. Obstacles balking fools the wise make pivots of 
 victory. Since the Staff of the army is the brain of the 
 army it is obviously different in its functions from those 
 who do the active work. When an officer with red tabs 
 on his uniform and a red band round his cap comes to the 
 trenches, looks at them, makes a few casual remarks, 
 goes away again, and you are presently told that every- 
 thing done has been done wrong and has to be done again, 
 there is, of course, a kind of revolt against it. Sometimes 
 you may say bitterly that the Staff has not got to do the 
 work. But possibly you may recognize as a compensation 
 that it could not do your work if it tried. I am sure that it 
 could not after it has been trained on its own special lines 
 for any length of time. But you must remember that this 
 partial incapacity is a sacrifice to efficiency in the organ- 
 ization to which you all belong. The Staff make their
 
 TRAINING AND ORGANIZATION 245 
 
 sacrifices in the same way as the combatant branches make 
 theirs. They give up a portion of themselves for the bene- 
 fit of the army. It is a curious fact, with which many of you 
 are probably not acquainted, that, though most of the cells 
 of the body are capable of reproducing themselves and do 
 constantly reproduce themselves throughout the life of 
 man, the nerve cells are incapable of reproduction. The 
 nerve cells and the whole brain composed of them, with 
 which you begin your life, you carry to the grave. This 
 may be a heavy burden to some unlucky people, but if you 
 think a minute it emphasizes amazingly the necessity of 
 training the nerve cells of the brain and whole nervous 
 system at an early stage of their career, and it shows us 
 why we should endeavour to keep them elastic. The man 
 who keeps his mind fresh through life is the man who is 
 interested in everything and is never stale or satisfied, for 
 he gives his nerve cells all kinds of work and keeps them in 
 training. But if he belongs to a highly specialized branch, 
 such as the Staff of an army, he must necessarily sacrifice, 
 or partially atrophy, much of his capabilities and capacities 
 for the definite ends of the body to which he belongs. If the 
 chief nerve cells and the main nervous system of the army 
 do this they must be very different from those of you who 
 are to be, if I may put it so, the nerve endings in the mus- 
 cular portions of the army organization. Those on the 
 Staff have much more to take into account, and above all 
 things must avoid being affected by the corporate enthu- 
 siasm which enables a battalion or a company or even 
 a platoon to be carried away by the passion of the fight. 
 If, therefore, the Staff keeps itself aloof from these passions, 
 as indeed it must, it often seems cold and alien from those 
 who do the actual work. For efficiency all must sacrifice 
 something of their individuality. All their nervous power
 
 246 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 must be turned towards the common ends for which they 
 have been trained. Our individuality depends largely on 
 the points in which we are, or believe ourselves to be, 
 different from other men. But when working together for 
 common objects we cannot insist upon our differences. 
 If we do insist upon them nothing can be done. I have seen 
 this happen dozens of times in badly organized committees. 
 Agreement on common ends, touched with mass emotion and 
 mass feeling, is the true basis of organization. 
 
 I do not suppose that many of you have made a study 
 of what is called the psychology of crowds. Many years 
 ago I began to work on the subject, and to my great 
 annoyance a very able Frenchman, Gustave Le Bon, 
 published a book called Psychologie des Foules. My only 
 consolation is that he probably did it better than I should 
 have done. It is brilliant and suggestive. If you pursue 
 studies of this order you will find that there is such a thing 
 as natural partial organization of individuals without 
 preparation and without a real nervous system. When 
 in crowds, you have sometimes found yourselves carried 
 away without knowing the reason. You have perhaps 
 shouted in a manner totally at variance with your common 
 habits, you may have been ready to assault people or to 
 break the law in the most enthusiastic way. I remember 
 many years ago, when I was ill and thought exercise would 
 do me good, going out for a long walk on one of the days 
 of the Epsom Spring Meeting. It will perhaps be hard 
 for me to convince you that I came out on Epsom Downs 
 without knowing where I was. When I found out and 
 saw the big crowd in the distance I walked towards it. 
 I was gloomy and dyspeptic. I never cared much for 
 racing ; I had never attended a big race meeting in my 
 life. But I said to myself that as I was there I might
 
 TRAINING AND ORGANIZATION 247 
 
 as well see what they were doing. Bit by bit I edged my 
 way into the crowd and presently forgot I was ill, and 
 began to take an interest in things. I asked the man 
 next to me what race was to be run and, obviously showing 
 great surprise at my ignorance, he answered that it was 
 the Oaks. And he told me that the name of the favourite 
 was Geheimniss. Presently the race was started, and 
 soon the crowd rose up with a roar as the horses came 
 round Tattenham Corner into the straight. Now do not 
 forget that I had not a penny on the result, and had never 
 seen a race before, and did not know the name of a single 
 mare in it until I was told. Yet when they came up the 
 straight, and the crowd began to shout, and the whole 
 of the people in the Grand Stand opposite rose to their 
 feet, to my utter amazement I found myself shouting at 
 the top of my voice, " Geheimniss wins, Geheimniss wins ! " 
 Somebody near me, on the other hand, having probably 
 put money on another animal, shouted, " So-and-so wins, 
 So-and-so wins ! " whereupon I turned upon him furiously 
 and said, "No, damn you, Geheimniss wins ! " And she 
 did win. Then the crowd broke up and I drifted out of 
 it and went off by myself wondering what had happened 
 to me. I know now that I had been caught by the massed 
 enthusiasm of the crowd and made one of a very peculiar 
 racing organism an organism, by the way, not of a high 
 type. 
 
 Here I think I might quote a short passage out of 
 something I wrote many years ago : 
 
 " A crowd is not human, as we understand human 
 individuality. It's not bestial, not reptilian. But it's 
 all three human, bestial, and reptilian .... A crowd 
 is a flood of life, a giant mass of deadly forces ; it has no 
 very clear foresight ; it takes the present only ; it has no
 
 248 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 conscience. A man in a crowd can commit crimes and 
 come out without knowing he has done so. It's a new 
 organism, a creature not in the books. Drag one of its 
 parts out, knock him down and cool him, and see him 
 come back slowly to humanity again, I've seen it. The 
 psychology of a crowd is the psychology of a pure in- 
 stinctive. A madman may act as a crowd acts ; he's 
 gone down to the raging level of a mass. The hot average 
 of an angry number is a devilish thing." 
 
 Some day those of you who remain in the army may 
 be called upon to Jo the most disagreeable duty of a 
 soldier, which is to act in civil disorder. Then you may 
 unluckily learn the nature of a savage crowd. Instinctively 
 you will recognize that it is an organism, and see that it 
 has a strength of passion single in aim. You will endeavour 
 to split it up, to keep it moving ceaselessly lest it should 
 get set and act. We may be thankful to know that these 
 very qualities and passions directed and trained and 
 organized can give us the army which we need. 
 
 In the crowd considered as a simple organism a single 
 thought almost always dominates. It cannot, as a rule, 
 be a lofty or ennobling thought, for without much training 
 a mass of people are rarely capable of being moved by 
 fine motives. Therefore you need not be surprised when 
 you recognize the fact that an organized crowd in action 
 is often a destructive organism. You may see the same 
 in strikes where the nervous system of a trades union 
 fails to control a badly organized body of men. Of course 
 in every crowd there are the rudiments of a nervous 
 system : somebody springs to the front and becomes a 
 ringleader. If he speaks, and speaks successfully, he 
 always represents what the others want and usually puts 
 it in a few words. What we are accustomed to call con-
 
 TRAINING AND ORGANIZATION 249 
 
 temptuously an agitator is nothing more nor less than a 
 possible part of the inchoate nervous system of a new 
 body. By the time it is properly organized we usually 
 cease to call the leaders abusive names, and if they keep 
 a firm nervous control over their numbers we are prepared 
 to do them more or less honour. 
 
 I think we may now say that, when we have specific 
 training for specific and definite purposes, we must have 
 a union of organized ideas, a common end, and a nervous 
 system. I dare say you have often been bored to tears, 
 almost to extinction, by some of the training through 
 which you have been put. This I know to be especially 
 true of the men who are, or will be, under your command, 
 when they are going through the long early stages of their 
 drill. Although on general principles it is not essential 
 to explain definitely to most recruits the whole purpose 
 of their training, I think the time comes when the men 
 should be given some of the real reasons why they have to 
 do things which weary them. Sometimes you will hear 
 a private declare he wishes he had not joined the army, 
 because he has been " forming fours " for twelve months 
 at a time. He cannot understand why he and the battalion 
 to which he belongs are not yet considered ready for 
 the Front. He will add that when he gets there he does 
 not suppose he will be kept " forming fours," and he 
 cannot understand why he should learn it anyhow. He 
 does not know that till it bores him in some measure it 
 has not become instinctive. And it has to be instinctive, 
 because only so can his nervous system learn to respond 
 rapidly to orders. Perhaps it is in some ways the same 
 with you. Possibly you wondered why you were put 
 through so much drill or why you had less than recruits. 
 It was not because you were more intelligent, but because
 
 250 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 as the last ends of the battalion's nervous system you had 
 to preserve more individuality than your men. Possibly 
 in certain cases you might explain to them why you are 
 drilling them why you want so much to get them to act 
 together, to act with rapidity, to act instinctively or even 
 like a reflex. And a reflex action, I may remind you, is 
 one that has a short path. It is not pondered over by the 
 intellect ; it is done more than instinctively, it is entirely 
 a decentralized action for which no reference need be 
 made to the higher brain. Rapid reflex action to the 
 stimulus of an order are the essential results of all good 
 training. When there is no time for reasoning, when 
 action is absolutely necessary, nobody must stop to think. 
 But in a properly trained and organized body of men, 
 whether it be large or small, the thinking has been done, 
 the men have learnt to obey ; while the officers have learnt 
 not only to obey but to understand what is wanted almost 
 before the order reaches them. They L adapted to 
 their new environment. You have, of course, already 
 been instructed that when you get into the firing line, 
 and are in command of a platoon or a company, and the 
 order is given to advance, it is your place to lead. Prob- 
 ably it is true that the best leaders are those who, on 
 such occasions, are out of the trenches themselves before 
 they give the order. Now if this is so, it is what we should 
 expect from the very nature of the organism I have been 
 trying to describe. As you see, the platoon leader or the 
 company leader is essentially the nervous portion of the 
 platoon or company. But, as you must know, when a 
 nervous impulse comes from the brain it is obvious the 
 nerve is in action before the muscles react. So when 
 you get the order, or the time comes for you to move, 
 you necessarily do so before your men. Where you go
 
 TRAINING AND ORGANIZATION 251 
 
 they will follow if they have been properly trained and 
 are in good condition. I may suggest to you here that 
 the phrase " shaken troops " means, in very many cases, 
 that the nervous system of that particular portion of 
 the organism has itself been shaken and broken up. So 
 long as the nervous system of the body keeps its power 
 of reaction to a stimulus, so long will the muscles move. 
 If the nerve fibre which moves a muscle is disintegrated 
 or gets paralysed the muscle will not stir. If a nerve 
 end is wholly tired out the impulse is not carried over 
 until it is repaired by rest. We know, however, by physical 
 experiments that, after a muscle thus ceases to contract, 
 it will work again if stimulated directly by an electric 
 battery. From this we see that it was the end of a nerve 
 which temporarily broke down, and that the muscle cells 
 still keep their contractility. You may therefore learn 
 from this the high responsibility that rests on you to keep 
 absolutely fit in mind and body, for the fitter you are 
 the longer you will be able to transmit energy and carry 
 out the orders you receive. In most cases you need not 
 doubt that if you have men who will not move when you 
 order them, the fault lies either with you as a leader or 
 with the training of the men before or since you took 
 them over. But be readier to blame yourselves than 
 others. Of course you will see, on the theories I have 
 just suggested to you (and remember I have no time to 
 do more than make suggestions), that much depends on 
 the quality of the nerves and the quality of the reacting 
 muscles, on the quality of the officers and the quality of 
 the troops. It sometimes happens in war, as you must 
 know, that the men who will not move for one officer will 
 for another, and that on desperate occasions the Com- 
 manding Officer himself may have to come into the firing
 
 252 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 line and take the place of the Company Officer. This 
 may remind you of what I have just said of a muscle 
 being directly stimulated by electricity. I can give you 
 a curious example of this which happened at sea in a 
 merchant ship. Organization in such a vessel is always 
 rough and ready, but still it is organization. In very 
 bad weather, when going aloft is highly dangerous, the 
 men sometimes will not move for the second mate, whose 
 duty it is to lead them when they are ordered aloft. In 
 this particular case they refused to follow him. It was 
 blowing a hurricane, and it was necessary to cut away 
 a topsail rather than stow it, because to have started a 
 sheet would probably have brought the topmast about 
 their ears. When they refused to follow the second 
 mate the mate attempted to lead them. One or two made 
 a motion to follow him, and were actually dragged back 
 by the others. Then the old skipper, a white-haired man 
 of over sixty, came down from the poop, and without a 
 word climbed on the rail. Just as he was about to put 
 his foot on the ratlines the men with one accord rushed 
 after him, pulled him down, and went aloft themselves. 
 You see they succumbed to the greater stimulus when they 
 had failed to move for the less. 
 
 Perhaps I may venture here to say something to you 
 about the men who will be under your command. They 
 will become much to you and you will be much to them 
 if you have in you the power of command, which is the 
 nervous force of organization. There are many ways of 
 doing things. With men the means are love and fear. 
 Your men should love you, and they will probably express 
 it by saying, " Oh, the officer's all right ! " You can, 
 of course, if you have the power in you, make them fear 
 you. That is one way of working, but if you make them
 
 TRAINING AND ORGANIZATION 253 
 
 love you they will fear you too. We fear those most 
 we love most. If any of you who are bachelors doubt 
 this, ask those among you who are married. Well, there 
 is something to add to this. Many a local success has 
 been gained in war by the rage of men at the loss of a 
 beloved leader. But I have never heard of one gained 
 because a man they feared and hated went down in battle. 
 Remembering that all of you make up an organization, 
 you will each in your own way reach out to your men 
 and grapple them to you. In chemistry an atom is said 
 to have much valency or little or none, and its valency 
 is its power of hooking on to other atoms and making 
 a big organized molecule. Might I say to you, get as much 
 valency as you can ? You may develop it by learning 
 to help, by sympathy, by understanding. There are 
 chemical compounds called paraffins, and the word 
 etymologically means " little affinity." Paraffins are 
 compounds of satisfied valency : perhaps we might say 
 they are fatly self-satisfied. They cannot hook on to 
 anything. Do not be paraffin officers : take your men 
 into your grasp. You will get some of their best qualities, 
 and you will give them some of yours. In a very deep 
 way you will become like them and they like you. 
 
 I do not know whether you have yet noticed, perhaps 
 as young men still being trained you have had little or 
 no chance to notice it, that under common impulses men 
 do get strangely alike. Probably there are officers here 
 who have seen this. A single dominating emotion so 
 prints itself on the faces of an organized body that the 
 common differences almost disappear. You do not 
 notice the individual members of a crowd if they are 
 moved by any vast passion. What you notice is the 
 passion itself, and it is often quite appalling. But such
 
 254 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 a passion, when it has been properly excited by the 
 actions and words of a leader, will occasionally come 
 back as a renewed stimulus with a tremendous force on 
 that very leader himself. I do not know whether you 
 remember a resounding phrase about a great traditional 
 poet and the people for whom he sang. It was : " What 
 they sent up to him in vapour he returned to them in 
 flood." 
 
 May I then say once more that it is your work so to 
 train your men and yourselves that, when the hour of 
 stress comes, you will not only help them and lead them, 
 but will also receive from them the unsuspected but 
 mighty stimulation which comes from the undivided 
 strength of a real organism devoted to one high end, 
 the well-being and honour and glory of our country ?
 
 CHAPTER X I 
 
 THE PHARMAKOS AND MEDICINE l 
 
 YEARS ago I began to wonder why the Greek 
 scapegoat or outcast of the festival of the 
 Thargelia was called a Pharmakos. I could not under- 
 stand what connection there could be between the Greek 
 words <poip(A<x,x,ov and (pappuxtvu and the scapegoat that 
 many have called the Human Medicine. However, the 
 matter passed out of my mind till I got a copy of the 
 second edition of The Rise of the Greek Epic, and there 
 Professor Murray's remarks in Appendix A brought the 
 matter back to me. Professor Murray seemed to believe 
 it was probably a foreign word, and, noting the long a 
 in the Ionic, suggested that in Attic the a was short 
 from analogy with <pap j o/a#oi'. This seemed to imply 
 that he regarded Pharmakos, the scapegoat, as differently 
 derived from <pap^a*ov, the drug. Nevertheless, on page 34 
 of the Greek Epic he speaks of the Pharmakos as Human 
 Medicine, which to my mind is a very late interpretation 
 of the word. It certainly is a difficult problem to con- 
 nect Pharmakos with a word for a drug or a man who 
 used a drug, a pharmacist or physician. But following 
 the clue which suggested a foreign origin, I sought for 
 some other word in the same area which might suggest 
 where it came from. I now believe that the original word 
 
 1 The Pharmakos, " Folk-Lore," vol. xxvii. 2, pp. 218-224. Vide Preface. 
 
 255
 
 256 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 and the two original roots which make it up came from 
 the Turkic family of speech. For there is to be found 
 in the Turkic tongues in various forms what looks like the 
 very word itself. In Turkish itself it is spelt vourmak, 
 which means " to beat." In this word vour is the root, 
 which means " beat," and mak or, rather, mag, is the 
 original root, both in the Turkic and Aryan families, 
 which means " make." That mak is common to these 
 two groups seems tolerably certain, though how it came 
 to be in both nobody knows. We certainly cannot con- 
 nect the Turkic with the Aryan group, and yet the root 
 mak is very widely spread. Thus vourmak means literally 
 " to make blows " or "to whip." It is odd that it is 
 seldom employed in any Turkic tongue to mean beating 
 with a stick or whip. In that case the root dyon is more 
 commonly used. When we remember that in the Greek 
 Ritual the Pharmakos was beaten with agnus castus, 
 with squills and other flowers, that must have some signi- 
 ficance. We may note that vourmak, " to beat," may 
 just as often have the termination mek when the Turkish 
 laws of euphony demand it. One of the Turkish sub- 
 stantival gerunds of vourmak is vourour or vfirfir, which 
 seems to be, curiously enough, the exact philological 
 equivalent of the Latin verber, a thong or whip, which is 
 apparently an oddly reduplicated form. From this it 
 seems the real meaning of Pharmakos is just a beaten or 
 whipped person, and at last, by a later process of semantics, 
 one who has been driven out with blows. Whether one 
 is justified in bringing in Latin in this case is a matter 
 of question, but it is certainly interesting to note that 
 the reduplicated root in verber and verberare and in verbero 
 (one who deserves a flogging) has in some ways a look as 
 if it did not belong to the Latin tongue, but was an importa-
 
 PHARMAKOS AND MEDICINE 257 
 
 tion as in the Greek. It is certainly suggestive of the 
 root vour or phar. I note in the old Etymologicon of Voss 
 he says as regards verbera, " sed cum Salmasio dicamus 
 verber esse ab seolico jSep-ryp pro Sgpryp." Of course, 
 no stress can be laid on this or on Voss. An interesting 
 analogy is also to be found in the Greek (jttuariyiott, a 
 scoundrel. 
 
 According to this view, <pup[Act%v&>, " I give drugs or 
 poisons," is, naturally, from the same roots. Its very 
 existence implies an early medicine man, a Shaman, 
 some one equivalent to those found with all their 
 ritual among the Africans and Central Asians. Thus 
 <papjO/axug/v means, as it would with early races, " to 
 drive out evil spirits with a whip, or with blows." Such 
 a connotation is, on my theory, earlier than " to give 
 poisons," but one knows that the ritual of the savage 
 cure largely consists in driving out the spirit of disease 
 or witchcraft by noisy incantations or by actual physical 
 ill-usage of the patient. If I am right, it is curious to 
 consider that our word " pharmacist " has for its early 
 meaning exactly that of the ancient medicine man or 
 exorcist. 
 
 There is another interesting point connected with 
 Pharmakos which I have not seen mentioned. All over 
 the East the word farma^ion is used with the meaning 
 of an outlaw, and quite commonly with that of a cunning 
 blood-drinking enemy of religion, a man who is a satanist 
 or devil-worshipper. Of course, by a sort of meiosis it 
 seems sometimes to mean a mere scoundrel, just as by a 
 kind of hypokorisma the equally interesting word epikouros 
 is used in Northern Africa, where this verbal descendant 
 of the name of the great philosopher has come to mean 
 an enemy of Islam, a Christian, and an atheist or a 
 17
 
 258 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 scoundrel. This is somewhat on a par with the use of the 
 word " Atheists " for the Christians at the time of Julian 
 the Apostate. There does not seem to me any doubt 
 whatever that farmagion is actually the same word as 
 Pharmakos. It is used in Turkey and Asia Minor, and 
 as far east as Afghanistan. It may be that the ancestors 
 of the Greeks borrowed it originally from some Turkic 
 race, and returned it again to the Mahommedans with a 
 fuller connotation. 
 
 Oddly enough, the word farmagion has, since its re- 
 adoption by Eastern races, taken on a new meaning. It 
 now often means " a freemason," one who is looked upon 
 by the orthodox as an outcast and a scoundrel, a sufi and 
 one highly irreligious. Not being a freemason myself, I 
 know nothing of its ritual, but, so far as I can learn, 
 members of this society, or those who are really instructed 
 in its ritual and doctrines, regard their common name 
 as one very uncertain in its etymology. Its present or 
 common meaning is undoubtedly false philology. Our 
 word freemason is, of course, a translation from the French 
 franc-mason, but to my mind " franc " is nothing but a 
 metathesized form of the vour of vourmak and the phar 
 of Pharmakos with an added euphonic nasal. Thus, it is 
 only by a later verbal accident that the " ma?on " was 
 turned into " mason," and connected with masonry and 
 building. Probably, then, it is actually the same root as 
 the mak of vourmak or farmafion. The early societies and 
 secret orders of the East (the East, as might be expected, 
 being full of secret orders) have linked themselves on to 
 masonry as the last surviving order which used their secret 
 marks. Probably, to begin with, these marks had no rela- 
 tion to building. It seems then that etymologically the 
 freemasons are no more than a band of " pharmakoi."
 
 PHARMAKOS AND MEDICINE 259 
 
 To go back to the actual Pharmakos, one may note that 
 Professor Murray is strongly of opinion that he was never 
 killed, but only beaten. This is certainly borne out by 
 my suggested etymology, although, of course, the very 
 word Pharmakos may only have come into use when the 
 ritual had been modified and humanized. It is interesting 
 to note that there are two small islands off the coast of 
 Attica, not far from Salamis and in the Bay of Eleusis, 
 which were known in classical times as Pharmacussse. 
 On one of them used to be shown the Temple of Circe. 
 There is another island on the coast of Asia Minor called 
 Pharmacusa, where, according to Plutarch, Caesar was 
 taken prisoner by pirates when he was a young man. I 
 cannot help thinking that in both cases these islands might 
 practically be translated into English as Outcast Island 
 or Islands. That is to say, they were originally refuges 
 for wandering scoundrels, pirates, and the like, those who 
 harried the settled mainland, and were looked upon as the 
 Britons looked upon the Danes, and as the mainlanders 
 looked upon some of the islanders at the time of the 
 Migrations of which Professor Murray gives such a fine 
 imaginative picture. There also is another island in the 
 Bay of lassus which is, I believe, still called Farmako. 
 It is possible, of course, that such a name sprang from 
 the fact that these islands were inhabited by survivors 
 of the primitive tribes who were always apt to be looked 
 upon as magicians. 
 
 Naturally enough, during the course of time there 
 have been many attempts to discover the root meaning 
 of Pharmakos, and I cannot help thinking that some 
 of the later attempts are little better than those of the 
 scholiast and grammarians. For instance, Eustathius 
 derives pharmakon from (p'spetv u,%Qo<; when used in a
 
 260 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 bad sense, and from <pgp/v oixog when used in a good 
 one. One does not always, even nowadays, get much 
 help from those who ought to know. When my theory 
 was submitted to one well-known Orientalist he said 
 that the older or classical form of vourmak was ourmak. 
 He was, of course, wrong. He was an authority on the 
 Semitic languages, but evidently knew little of Turkish. 
 It is impossible to speak of it as an old form when all 
 existing Turkish documents, being in the Arabian char- 
 acter, must necessarily be subsequent to the eighth 
 century, when the Turks of the Khanates were endowed 
 simultaneously with Islam and the Persi-Arabic alphabet. 
 Nor do I understand how he could have thought ourmak 
 could have been degraded into the popular form vourmak. 
 According to all philologic knowledge, any degradation 
 would have been in the opposite direction. It may be 
 noted that as there is no Arabic character to represent the 
 v sound the Turks use the wau for this purpose. There 
 are, in fact, hundreds of words in Turkish beginning with 
 a v sound and thousands in which the v is incorporated. 
 They are all represented by the Arabic wau. 
 
 In this paper I have not troubled to speak about the 
 actual meaning of the Pharmakos ceremony. Professor 
 Murray seems wedded to the belief that it was in every 
 case a mimema. On the other hand, Sir James Frazer 
 is equally certain that even in civilized Greece the Thar- 
 gelian rites took darker forms than the mere expulsion of 
 this quasi-religious outcast when he was beaten with agnus 
 castus or squills and expelled from the city. Certainly, 
 the derivation which I offer seems on the surface to support 
 Professor Murray's contention. But the general body of 
 anthropological lore on this subject points steadily to 
 darker customs which may have been resurrected in
 
 PHARMAKOS AND MEDICINE 261 
 
 classical Greece during the times of abnormal wrath on 
 the part of the gods or in times of scarcity, if the Phar- 
 makos represented, as he often must have done, the spirit 
 of winter. 
 
 It would, of course, be interesting to get some early 
 references to the use of farmapion, but it is very difficult 
 to trace any Oriental expression before mediaeval times. 
 One has to remember that using the pen was, in its way, a 
 solemn rite. Up to the tenth century every sheet of 
 writing was headed among the Mahommedans, " In the 
 Name of Allah, the Compassionate and Most Merciful " ; 
 and is still in all literary work. An Orientalist friend of 
 mine to whom I have referred asks, " How, with such 
 a headline, would a pious scribe dare to refer to a blood- 
 drinking satanic farmafion ? Such a combination might 
 have made some dreadful formula capable of shooting 
 the writer into the infinities of the wth dimension of space." 
 Such an attitude of mind is especially characteristic of 
 the Oriental. Although magic was utterly condemned by 
 Mahomet, it was believed in none the less because he 
 condemned it as a practice, and it is still believed in. 
 My friend tells me that the word has been used for a long 
 .time in the traditional comments on a portion of the ritual 
 of a secret society into which he was initiated in an obscure 
 town on the Tigris. The actual early papyrus was totally 
 indecipherable and belonged to no known language. 
 Indeed, those who held these documents, which had 
 probably been transcribed many times by men who did not 
 understand the script, were of the romantic opinion that 
 the original was to be referred to the era of Khamurabi, 
 although the comments were probably not older than 
 the eighth century A.D. Of course, such a statement as 
 this is not evidence without further support. And yet, if
 
 262 WARFARE IN THE HUMAN BODY 
 
 the derivation of Pharmakos is what I have suggested, the 
 use of the word certainly goes back beyond all historic 
 times. Assuredly farmafion must be a very ancient word, 
 and the horror of the orthodox Islamite for it is natural 
 enough. We may compare the Catholic Church and 
 its views of Freemasonry. There were political reasons 
 for this, but the Church has a deep-seated jealousy and 
 dislike and even fear of secret societies. 
 
 While considering this subject I have come across some 
 who actually declared that we might start the history of 
 the word from Odyssey ix. 393. That is certainly of to-day 
 compared with its real history, for even Hipponax of the 
 sixth century B.C. had to explain it. And when this 
 passage in the Odyssey uses (pappoiffffetv in the sense of to 
 " temper," how is it possible for us to look on mere temper- 
 ing as a primitive meaning when we know what we do of 
 the whole body of Wayland Smith legends ? A smith was 
 always a magician in the old times. Of course, the 
 scholiast interprets the word in this passage as "harden- 
 ing." As a matter of fact, it was probably " curing." 
 What a magic sorcerer or smith did was to cure the iron 
 of its native softness and bewitch it, almost certainly 
 with incantations and ritual, as he plunged it into the 
 tempering medium. We might even say that he drove 
 out the devil of softness. Wherever there is an element 
 of magic in a word one expects that to be primary. The 
 expression (pappciffasiv -/oCwov, " to temper or strengthen 
 brass," cannot be primary. One needs some imagination 
 to deal with words like this. One of the weaknesses of 
 the common dictionary is its habit of putting the usually 
 accepted meaning first and the original meaning after- 
 wards. So, when one looks at Liddell and Scott one sees 
 means, to begin with, " to medicate," and
 
 PHARMAKOS AND MEDICINE 263 
 
 secondly, "to enchant or bewitch by the use of potions." 
 The word certainly goes back to the ages of magic ritual, 
 and back again to the very expulsion of Jonahs, people 
 who had no luck and brought ill luck, probably before 
 magic itself was practised. It is a natural animal instinct 
 to turn out those who seem to bring ill fortune, even 
 if there is no piacular element in such an expulsion. 
 Animals often expel some of their kind. We may compare 
 rooks and elephants and even cattle, who kill a wounded 
 member of the herd when his loud lowing might possibly 
 bring them into danger. 
 
 Of course, it is exceedingly hard to say, when we con- 
 sider what a linguistic whirlpool Asia Minor has always 
 been, what was the actual origin of this particular word. 
 It might not originally be Turkic. There is a strange 
 tendency among certain people to attribute everything 
 unknown to the Hittites, but, as no one seems to know 
 what Hittite is, that is very little use to the investigator. 
 Vourmak may not, of course, be Turkic at all, although it is 
 a living word in the living Turkish language at the present 
 time.
 
 APPENDIX A 
 
 THE INFECTION THEORY OF CANCER 
 
 IT was obviously impossible to discuss in the text 
 all the theories of cancer in detail, but as I under- 
 stand that some think the paper less than just to the case 
 presented by those who support the infection theory, 
 something more may be said of it. It was, perhaps, too 
 much to infer without a more special examination that 
 the parasitic hypothesis of malignancy is only explaining 
 one mystery by another. The real objection to this 
 hypothesis is that even if it were found to be a fact that 
 an infection precedes all malignant growth, it would remain 
 a mere observation and not an explanation. What we 
 want to know is why invasive cell-proliferation takes place, 
 and whether excessive cell-growth is peculiar to such 
 diseases, or can be found in others. Any bacteriological 
 explanation of malignancy must classify the phenomena 
 among those which are recognized as being symptomatic 
 of infection. So far this has not been done, and a pro- 
 visional assumption that the imagined infective agent 
 is so different from all others as to be able to produce the 
 phenomena in question exhibits many of the marks of 
 vitalism, i.e. it invests the agent with the unexplained 
 power of producing what we desire to explain. Logically 
 an unknown entity capable of causing the effects in 
 
 question must not be propounded as a cause if any evidence 
 
 265
 
 266 APPENDIX A 
 
 can be brought to show that known causes can produce 
 them. If so they can be classed. If they are unique 
 phenomena in infection they obviously cannot be classed. 
 But as overgrowth is not a unique phenomenon among 
 developmental diseases, and as we know that it can be 
 caused, or inhibited, by chemical cell-products, we are 
 entitled to declare that infection, if a cause, is a secondary 
 one, and that the real cause lies among the phenomena of 
 growth as much as acromegaly and other disorders due 
 to unregulated stimulation of organic tissues. 
 
 It is impossible to argue clearly upon so complex a 
 subject unless the nature of explanation is really under- 
 stood. We need but ask any one to " explain " explana- 
 tion to find how few have clear ideas on the subject. 
 According to the logicians a partial comparison is not 
 explanation. The phenomena of one science are only to 
 be regarded as explained when they can be classed among 
 the observed sequences, or so-called laws, of a more 
 inclusive science. Therefore the pathological phenomena 
 of malignancy must be capable of classification with regard 
 to physiological phenomena as we must regard patho- 
 logical facts as deviations from the average or normal 
 tissue. In the paper I endeavoured to range the facts 
 under physiological and biological laws, since biology 
 includes physiology and pathology. However unsuc- 
 cessful the attempt may have been, it is obvious that it 
 was not made without reason or without results, whereas 
 the attempt to range them under the observed sequences 
 of bacteriology fails in vital particulars, and leaves us 
 just where we were, that is, in presence of a possible 
 infective agent which is hypothetically given the qualities 
 that produce the effects with none of the known signs of 
 infectivity. For until a malignant growth becomes really
 
 APPENDIX A 267 
 
 infected it is, so far as its cells are concerned, obviously 
 in riotous health, and although symbiotic alliance occurs in 
 lower organisms such as Convoluta roscoffenis the sym- 
 biosis is not intracellular, as the infective, microbic, or 
 protozoal theory of cancer demands. 
 
 Moreover, even if a special infection hypothesis were 
 proved to be correct, we should still have to seek the cause 
 of the tissues acting as they did when affected by, or in 
 symbiosis with, the pathogenic agent. Till that is under- 
 stood we are still in the dark, and the particular organism 
 which causes disaster remains no more than a secondary 
 or exciting cause. It is, therefore, strictly logical to 
 range all infection causes as irritative, or irritative and 
 weakening, agents, whether they be one or many. Lambert 
 Lack teaches that periodontitis is a common cause of 
 tongue cancer, by which he means that its toxic products 
 acting in combination with other irritation and syphilis 
 in some way urge the epithelium into revolt. Such a 
 view is logically sound. It is stated by Peyton Rous 
 that fowl sarcoma can be reproduced by the injection of 
 a filtered extract of the original malignant growth. It 
 is therefore inferred by some authorities that the repro- 
 duced disease is due to a filter-passing organism. So long, 
 however, as such a filter-passer cannot be cultivated, or 
 shown to exist by other methods, it is only legitimate to 
 infer that such a phenomenon must be ranged among 
 those caused by irritative agents or toxins pulling the 
 trigger of an unstable tissue. Moreover, even if the sus- 
 pected filter-passer is proved to exist, the only logical 
 inference to be drawn is that an infective organism can 
 excite sarcomatous overgrowth in the fowl's tissue just 
 as other irritative agents can produce carcinoma. The 
 evidence takes us no further than irritation. Even if it
 
 268 APPENDIX A 
 
 were proved that a sterilized injection of this sarcomatous 
 growth failed to reproduce the original disease, it would 
 still be far from proved that more than irritation was 
 needed to cause it. It is, indeed, quite probable that the 
 toxins of the injection, if not broken up by the process 
 of sterilization, might still produce the sarcoma by abnormal 
 stimulation of the connective tissues, a view in accordance 
 with those suggested in the paper. If malignancy were 
 caused by the suggested agents we should expect like 
 results to be found in more cases than this. I suggest 
 that such experiments in aged fowls might produce 
 carcinoma, not sarcoma. 
 
 Certain results obtained by Bashford with regard to 
 the immunization of mice to mouse-cancer by the injection 
 of mouse skin, need further elucidation. I am not sure 
 whether pure epithelial products were injected, or whether 
 connective tissue was used with it. According to the 
 developmental theory it may be suggested that if epithelium 
 was used alone, mouse-cancer might more properly be called 
 a sarcoma. But in any case it remains very suggestive 
 that animal tissues, whose action must be in the nature of 
 the products of the endocrine organs, do produce inhibitory 
 effects. It is, perhaps, the more surprising that the work 
 of Shattock, Seligmann, and Dudgeon, when they attempted 
 to produce chondromatous growths by grafting foetal 
 bones, did not lead them in the direction of the develop- 
 mental view rather than in that of parasitism or infection. 
 Their statements as to restraining bodies, or " corpora 
 cohibentia " are strictly parallel with the doctrine of the 
 endocrines which obviously inhibit as well as stimulate. 
 They state that " the cartilage of the body (like each of 
 the other tissues) tends, we may assume, per se, to grow 
 indefinitely and without limitation. But against this
 
 APPENDIX A 269 
 
 inherent endeavour, each of the other tissues, other than 
 the cartilage, furnishes a restraining substance, and co- 
 ordinates its growth with the rest." If this is true, and 
 few will nowadays be found to doubt that it represents, 
 at any rate partially, the actual machinery through which 
 ordered growth is obtained, it follows inevitably that the 
 want of a particular restraining body should result in the 
 disorderly growth of some tissue specially apt to pro- 
 liferate. Such are epithelium and connective tissue, the 
 agents of malignancy, and in view of the whole of the 
 phenomena of malignant disaster and repair it is perfectly 
 legitimate to infer that these two tissues are those which 
 react most powerfully upon each other. 
 
 Other experiments by Shattock and Dudgeon are of 
 great interest and value, and at first sight may seem to 
 support the parasitic theory. Mice fed with mouse-cancer 
 appear to have developed, (i) a round-celled sarcoma, (z) 
 an invasive epithelioma of the mediastinal glands, (3) an 
 invasive endothelioma. Such results are, however, by 
 no means convincing. Abnormal results from highly 
 abnormal foods are what might be expected, on the general 
 theory of physiological balance. Salmon and trout fry 
 fed upon pig's liver develop a thyroidal overgrowth which 
 later may become malignant, and the ingestion of foods, 
 carrying stimulating or inhibiting products or both, should 
 on the developmental view have abnormal results. It 
 has been said that excessive thyroidal medication is in 
 some cases followed by cancer. Moreover, the statement 
 by the two workers above mentioned really supports the 
 developmental view. They say " the first striking thing 
 is that the tumours of the three mice have not the same 
 histological character, and that none can be viewed as 
 having resulted from the growth of implanted cells." If,
 
 270 APPENDIX A 
 
 however, such tumours resulted from a definite parasite, 
 we should look for a repetition of the original histological 
 structure. From the point of view of endocrine action, 
 however, nothing is more likely than that the subjects of 
 the experiment should break down in different ways. One 
 mouse cannot have the exact resistance of another, nor 
 could we look for the same results in all of them any more 
 than we should expect soot carcinoma in every chimney, 
 sweep. 
 
 It must be insisted on that the developmental theory 
 of cancer is as definitely against cancer propagation by 
 transplantation of cells from one patient to another as it 
 is against a definite cancer parasite. When Shattock 
 endorses Paget's view that malignancies in families is not 
 due to such causes it is impossible not to agree. But 
 such an agreement by no means reduces us to the necessity 
 of admitting infection. A family with inherited tissue 
 instability, if exposed to conditions likely to decrease 
 health and further impair tissue balance, may experience 
 any form of malignant growth. Quite independent of 
 such diseases families can be found in which one member 
 is hyperthyroidal, another an athyroidal dwarf, and an- 
 other myxcedematous. That families subject to malignant 
 disease die of various forms of it is distinctly against 
 parasitism. 
 
 It is argued that some of the phenomena of radium 
 and X-ray malignancy imply a second factor, probably, 
 or at least possibly, a parasite. But in X-ray cancer 
 nothing more appears to be needed than the disturbing 
 effects of the rays themselves. It is difficult to suppose 
 that any organism is always infected with an organism 
 ready to display its activities on X-ray excitation ; a 
 supposition which is necessary as such rays, if sufficiently
 
 APPENDIX A 271 
 
 applied, always produce malignancy. With regard to 
 radium, I understand that Lazarus-Barlow claims to have 
 produced by it a " pre-cancerous " growth in rats and 
 rabbits. These altered tissues were only slightly invasive, 
 and when the radium action was stopped they resumed 
 their normal character. It is held by some that this 
 proves the necessity of a second factor which may be 
 parasitic, but the strictly logical view is simply that the 
 organism recovered, i.e. that the normal tissue inhibitions 
 were restored, and that the altered tissues resumed their 
 ancient functions. Since we know that, even in obvious 
 cancer, attempts of the organism to cure it succeed for 
 long periods, it is illegitimate to infer that an artificially 
 produced morbid state of possible malignancy in a healthy 
 subject may not revert to a normal condition when the 
 disturbing influence is removed. 
 
 With regard to the difference between benign and 
 malignant tumours, which some think are such as to divide 
 them entirely into classes of wholly different causation, 
 it may be said that much late work does not support this 
 view. The fact that so many benign growths at last be- 
 come malignant, and that in others the dividing line is 
 so obscure that the histologist and pathologist are doubtful 
 as to their character, obviously suggests that a further 
 want of inhibition or the increase of some undue stimula- 
 tion may end in malignancy. A few authorities argue 
 that even benign tumours are parasitic in their origin. 
 All that is necessary to say of this is that such a theory 
 of causation appears superfluous. 
 
 Perhaps the best defence of the parasitic theory is 
 that of D'Este Emery (Tumours, 1916). It is well 
 argued, and likely to convince those who are already 
 inclined to take the view supported. Many of the
 
 272 APPENDIX A 
 
 arguments, however, will not bear critical examination. 
 Emery and C. P. White seem to think that a continu- 
 ously progressing proliferation of malignant tissue de- 
 mands a continuously increasing irritant. This is surely 
 fallacious. If there is any loss of balance in a body or 
 any other structure, less and less power is needed to 
 cause destruction. The Leaning Tower of Pisa should 
 take less to overthrow it now than when it was built. 
 If the theory of organic restraint has any basis at all, 
 and no one can deny that it is very firmly based, any 
 such disaster as malignancy may be compared to a breach 
 made in a dam. To remove the highest part will 
 take much labour, but as water begins to flow potential 
 energy becomes kinetic, and the whole dam goes. In 
 malignancy we need not posit an increasing power, for 
 what we see in most cases is a decreasing resistance, as 
 every pathologist recognizes that there is attempted 
 repair in cancer, even though it mostly fails. Emery 
 also says, "if growth is very rapid, the innermost layer 
 of the epithelium may find it easier to grow downward 
 into the tissues than up." The italics are mine. The 
 developmental or hostile symbiotic view explains such 
 a fact. Indeed it shows that the necessary preliminary 
 to such downward growth is a failure of the connective 
 tissues which is plainly demonstrated by the pheno- 
 mena accompanying excessive radiation. With irri- 
 tated reacting epithelium it is not "may" but " must." 
 According to D'Este Emery malignant cells frequently 
 act as phagocytes, which suggests they have some power 
 of movement. This is surely a forced interpretation 
 of the destructive nature of malignant cells. That 
 they erode tissue, and even " eat away bone " 
 (Bland-Sutton) is true enough. But we do not call
 
 APPENDIX A 273 
 
 the erosive action of the chorionic trophoblast phago- 
 cytic, and, as is said in my paper, Handley states that the 
 multinuclear cell of cancer appears when met with resist- 
 ance such as the blood possesses. That the cells " move " 
 is true, but their movement, which can be measured, is 
 the thrust of growth, and room is obtained for that by 
 the cell catalyst and mechanical pressure. 
 
 Emery's views upon X-ray phenomena are to be 
 found in less than a dozen lines. He remarks that the 
 cracks seen in X-ray dermatitis are portals of infection. 
 Such infections as entert hat way are, however, those 
 which can be proved to be known agents, and the theory 
 ignores the facts that long before cancer is recognizable 
 there is, underlying the irritated epithelium, the true 
 pre-cancerous stage of rarified connective-tissue elements. 
 Would the author affirm that continually sterilized hands 
 exposed for long periods to X-rays would not become 
 malignant ? 
 
 The argument based upon cage infection does not 
 carry much weight. Captive animals are already in an 
 unnatural condition. It is notorious that their general 
 powers of resistance, and especially their powers of 
 repair, are weakened. If many of them break down with 
 malignant disease, what is the most that can be logically 
 inferred ? It is that in bad conditions and poor health 
 some infection, if it is an infection, may cause irrita- 
 tion and malignancy. But no one ever denied that 
 infections can be irritative causes of epithelial over- 
 growth. 
 
 Another argument is that malignant tissue growing 
 alongside normal epithelium shows that the latter has a 
 power of resistance. It is difficult to see what is in- 
 ferred from this. It is to be expected from all the 
 18
 
 274 APPENDIX A 
 
 phenomena that to begin with there should be a local 
 breakdown of balance at the point of irritation, and 
 the spread of it into normal epithelium which does 
 not immediately revolt is no more surprising than that 
 a social riot, in which the police have been over- 
 powered, should spread, and yet be repelled for a time 
 in areas where they are still strong, and the inhabitants 
 have not been excited to disorder. It is no vain 
 metaphor to suggest that in the body politic the police 
 greatly resemble the wandering connective-tissue cells 
 of any organism. 
 
 In conclusion, it may be repeated, and even in- 
 sisted on, that only the developmental and endocrine 
 theory shows any reason whatsoever for the basal facts 
 of malignancy, that is, for the actual undue prolifer- 
 tion of tissue cells, their tendency to revert to an em- 
 bryonic character, and their power to spread beyond 
 normal boundaries, while the biological conception of the 
 organism as a federation of cell-colonies working in a 
 harmony, which is the result of "constraining bodies," 
 throws a brilliant light on invasiveness as the result of 
 a failure in such inhibitions. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 EMERY D'EsTE. " Tumours," 1916. 
 
 SHATTOCK and DUDGEON. " Feeding Experiments with Mouse- 
 cancer," Proc. Royal Soc. Med., vol. x. p. 35, 1916-17.
 
 APPENDIX B 
 
 THE PR RON BUS TERTIUS 
 
 IT seems as if the peroneus terlius, a muscle only 
 found in the human organism as a special portion 
 of the mechanism for preserving the structure of the 
 foot from damage in orthogrades, is a key case for the 
 opponents of transmission. This muscle is a lesser 
 opponent of the tibialis anticus, which is found well 
 developed in simians not using, or only rarely using, 
 the upright posture. It must, then, have come into 
 existence at a late period of evolution. This is em- 
 phasized by the fact, that a few fibres of the tertius are 
 occasionally found in the gorilla. Is such a direct 
 adaptation to be attributed to germinal variations, that 
 is to say, to accident, if we hold that the germ- 
 plasm does not respond magically to new needs ? To me 
 this seems much more than unlikely. A new muscle 
 has arisen at a special point of strain as a part of the 
 set of muscles preserving the arch of the foot and, 
 as we see from pathology, it is not yet doing its work 
 with complete success. It is still imperfect. If such 
 a muscle is not a direct adaptation to new stresses 
 words have ceased to have any meaning. To say that 
 a single muscle cell or fibre arose from a " spontaneous " 
 germinal variation, and was found advantageous, is to 
 make a mockery of mechanism. But if it is assumed
 
 276 APPENDIX B 
 
 that continual stress can produce such a muscle reaction 
 we may infer that continued strain would reinforce it. 
 We can, in fact, prophesy that in time such continued 
 stresses will secure adequate response. We must also 
 infer that, when a set of muscles is used in a new position, 
 as was the case when the upright posture was adopted, 
 opposing muscles are no longer properly counterbalanced. 
 Some new muscle is called for. It is obvious that such 
 new strain must be repeated in embryo if the muscle 
 is to increase, since new muscles fibres do not come into 
 existence later. As the embryonic tibialis anticus begins 
 to exert a pull, these stresses are felt by yet undifferenti- 
 ated cells, the parents of muscle cells, which are capable 
 of becoming muscle if so stressed. Without such em- 
 bryonic strains the tissues would have altered in some 
 other manner. If language is not to be tortured into 
 something which serves no function, we must come to 
 the conclusion that new stresses are repeated during 
 development, and exert a morphogenetic influence upon 
 the undifferentiated tissues. If this is so transmission is 
 no longer guesswork.
 
 MARCUS TERENTIUS VARRO 
 
 AS this passage seems little known I have tran- 
 scribed it here, although it is an uncertain, and 
 perhaps corrupt, text. 
 
 De Re Rustica. Book i., chap. xii. " Sin cogare 
 secundum flumen sedificare, curandum ne adversam earn 
 (villam) ponas : hieme enim fiet vehementer frigida et 
 aestate non salubris. Animadvertum etiam, siqua 
 erunt loca palustria, et propter easdem caussas, et quod 
 (arescunt) crescunt animalia qusedam minuta, quae non 
 possunt oculi consequi, et per aera intus in corpus per 
 os et nares perveniunt atque efficiunt difficiles morbos." 
 
 Fundanius, " Quid potero " inquit, " facere si istius 
 modi mi fundus hereditati obvenerit, quominus pesti- 
 lentia noceat ? " 
 
 " Istuc vel ego possum respondere," inquit Agrius : 
 " vendas quot assitus possis, aut, si nequeas, relinquas. 
 . . . Praetera quod a sole toto die illustratur, salubrior 
 est et bestiolae siquse prope nascuntur et inferuntur, aut 
 efflantur aut aritudine cito pereunt." 
 
 " But if you must build beside a river you must take 
 care that you do not put the house to face it : for in 
 winter it will be excessively cold, and in summer un- 
 healthy. For the same reasons you have to be on your 
 
 277
 
 278 APPENDIX C 
 
 guard against marshy places, and also because (as they 
 dry) minute animals are engendered there which cannot 
 be detected by the eyes, and these borne by the air get 
 into the body through mouth and nostrils, and cause 
 diseases difficult to get rid of." 
 
 Fundanius said : " What should I do to avoid the evil 
 of infection if I were to inherit an estate of that kind ? " 
 
 " I can tell you that," replied Agrius. " Sell it for 
 what you can get, and if you can't sell, leave it. ... 
 Besides, the house is healthier for being shone upon all 
 day, and if any animalcules breed and are carried there, 
 they are either blown away or quickly perish through 
 the dryness (of the air)."
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abderhalden, Emil. on immunity, 132. 
 Acquired characteristics, death itself 
 
 acquired, 19, 201. 
 Accelerator fibres, 106 seq. 
 Acromegaly, 23, 40. 
 
 unilateral, 31. 
 
 Adami, J. G., habit of tissues, 27, 35. 
 Adaptation, a process of repair, 72. 
 Adrenalin, and cowardice, 241. 
 
 effect on intestine, 191. 
 
 in danger, 200. 
 
 Alcheringa and the Golden Age, 147. 
 Alliances, forced, 161. 
 Analogy, incomplete induction, 5, 6, 
 
 . X 7- 
 
 discovery of analogies in science, 7- 
 Anaphylaxis, suggested explanation of, 
 
 139. 
 Aneurisms and the heart, 73. 
 
 repair of, 76. 
 
 Animism and vitalism, 224. 
 Anthropology, as mental training, 204, 
 
 222. 
 
 neglect of by psychologists, 24. 
 Aortic stenosis, heart weight in, 75. 
 Apolant, H., on mouse cancer, 50. 
 Arches, stress, failure and repair of, 68. 
 Army as an organism, 239. 
 Arsenic, as a provoker of lipoid, 136. 
 Atkinson, Primal Law of, 150. 
 Auerbach's Plexus, in. 
 Avoidance, 150, 152, 154. 
 
 Bacteria, iron-using, 190. 
 
 manganese-using, 200. 
 Bacteriology, nomenclature of, 129. 
 Bainbridge, W. S., on cancer, 34. 
 Balance, in construction, 30. 
 Balneology and water-spirits, 2IO. 
 Bashford, cancer and immunity, 268. 
 Bathing, not natural, 204. 
 
 to get rid of spirits, 216. 
 Bayliss, Prof. \V. M., "accidental" 
 enzymes, 135. 
 
 shock, 99. 
 
 water movement in muscle, 1 10. 
 
 Becquerel rays, 45. 
 
 Bell, Charles, muscular sense, 117. 
 
 Belogolovy, G. A., Frog Pelobates, 
 
 193- 
 
 Benign growths, 271. 
 Bernard, Claude, on disease and 
 
 biology, 66. 
 Betz, cells of, 235. 
 Biceps, fibres of, 104. 
 Binbinga, and necrophagy, 162, 165. 
 Biologic conceptions of organisms, 22. 
 Biologic parallels, use of, 15. 
 Birth in mammalians, 185. 
 Bitches, mammary cancer in, 47. 
 Bland-Sutton, Sir J., cancer erosion, 
 272. 
 
 chorionic trophoblast, 36, 85. 
 
 femoral sarcoma, 51. 
 
 glandular pantheon, 31. 
 
 pathology and biology, 66. 
 Blood and cancer, 53. 
 
 in history of lustration, 205. 
 Blood-cells, as germ-cells, 185. 
 Bourne, Prof. G. C., advocate of trans- 
 mission, 90. 
 
 Bramann, on the scrotum, 82. 
 Breakdown and repair, 67. 
 Browning on immunity, 139. 
 Budding and emigration, 15. 
 Bundle of His, rate of conduction, 97. 
 Bunyip, 208. 
 Butler, S., Unconscious Memory, 194. 
 
 Cage cancer, 273. 
 
 Campbell, Dr. Harry, inter-tribal 
 
 warfare, 169. 
 Cancer, theories of, 32 seq. 
 
 and cartilage, 269. 
 
 and castration, 47. 
 
 and gastric ulcers, 48. 
 
 atruphic, 42. 
 
 cage, 273. 
 
 cells, as phagocytes, 272. 
 
 cells, polymorphism of, 38. 
 
 constitutional theory, 32. 
 
 developmental disease, a, 58. 
 
 279
 
 280 
 
 Cancer, familial, 270. 
 
 foods, 34. 
 
 houses, 41. 
 
 infection, 18, 32, 265 seq. 
 
 irritation, 36. 
 
 multi-nucleated cell in, 273. 
 
 repair in, 272. 
 
 social analogues for, 21. 
 
 suggestions for research, 57. 
 
 Thiersch on, 34, 35. 
 
 transplantation of, 270. 
 
 Waldeyer on, 34, 35. 
 Cannibalism, 157. 
 
 M'Cullough on, 146. 
 
 modern necrophagy, 1 66. 
 
 moral reprobation of, 145, 
 
 once universal, 178. 
 
 Spencer and Gillen, 162. 
 
 Toussenel on, 168. 
 Carcharias, shark's heart, III. 
 Carcinoma. See Cancer. 
 Cardiac vagus and inhibition, 94, 96, 
 
 113 ?., 119, 125. 
 Cardiograms, interpretation of, 123. 
 Cartilage and cancer, 269. 
 Castration and cancer, 47. 
 Catalysts, loss of, in disease, 19- 
 
 and manganese, 200. 
 
 as tools, 12, 199. 
 
 in old age, 19. 
 
 new combinations in, 190. 
 Cathedral, principles of evolution seen 
 
 in, 69. 
 Causes, real and false, 267. 
 
 irritation as "cause," 267. 
 Cell, senescent, 197. 
 
 a great social aggregate using tools, 
 
 197. 
 
 Champy, tissue growth in vitro, 42. 
 Character and disease, 82. 
 Chellean art, 149. 
 Child, C. M., on early degeneration, 
 
 18. 
 
 Senescence and f!ejuvenesence, 196. 
 Cholera and holy water, 224. 
 Chorion-epithelioma, 33, 54, 86. 
 Chromosomes and variation, 188. 
 
 Catalytic tools in, 1 86. 
 Classificatory system, 158 seq. 
 
 origin of, 158, 161, 165. 
 Cleanliness not natural, 204. 
 Coley's Fluid, reasons of usual failure 
 
 of, 50. 
 
 Colloidal chemistry, neglect of, 141. 
 Colour produced by peroxidases, 136. 
 Cohnheim, "rests "in cancer, 27, 35. 
 Columella on dangerous insects, 125. 
 
 Committees, mentality of, 240. 
 Complexes, hidden racial, 155. 
 
 as myth, 156. 
 Conditioned reflexes in inhibition, 95. 
 
 See Pavlov. 
 Connective tissue, influence of, on 
 
 epithelium, 43. 
 and malignity, 40. 
 Consciousness, adaptational response, 
 
 235- 
 
 as reflex, 1 1 8. 
 
 mystery of, 228. 
 
 nature of, 232. 
 Conservatism in cells, 194. 
 Construction principles of universal, 
 
 64. 
 
 Co-ordination of knowledge, 4. 
 Corpora cohibentia, 268. 
 Corporations, mentality of, 240. 
 Cortex, number of neurons, 229. 
 Cowardice an adrenal failure, 241. 
 Cremaster, the result of stress and 
 
 repair, 78. 
 
 Crowds, nature of, 246 seq. 
 Cunningham, Prof. J. T. , advocate of 
 transmission, 90, 198. 
 
 work on hormones, II. 
 Cures, cancer, use of, 49. 
 Cushny, Prof. A. R., on digitalis, 114. 
 
 Darier and Wolbarth, 44. 
 Darwin, Charles, pangenes determin- 
 ants, 13. 
 
 origin of variations, 66. 
 
 spontaneous variations, Ji. 
 
 unfavourable variations, 13. 
 Death an acquired characteristic, 201. 
 Death-rate and provoked immunity, 
 
 138. 
 
 Dendy, Prof. A., advocate of trans- 
 mission, 90. 
 
 Dental disease and mastication, 206. 
 Dermatitis, X-ray, 43. 
 Determinants, catalytic, 13. 
 
 determining nothing, 193. 
 
 hormones, etc., 91. 
 Development, embryonic and pre- 
 
 embryonic, 186. 
 Diastole, active nature of, 97. 
 
 negative pressure of, 1 08. 
 
 "rebound "of, 108. 
 Dicrotism, 121. 
 
 Dietetics and food-taboos, 224. 
 Digitalis, action of, 114 saj. 
 
 Cushny on, 1 14. 
 
 poisonous stage, 115. 
 Dilatation, cardiac, in evolution, 77.
 
 INDEX 
 
 281 
 
 Disasters, and repair as reaction to, 
 
 70. 
 Disease, function of, in evolution, 64, 
 
 65- 
 
 morphogenetic factor, 90. 
 
 organic and functional, 63. 
 Discovery and freed energy, 235. 
 Drainage, nerve, 97. 
 Driesch, entelechy of, 62. 
 
 rudimentary psychoids, 198. 
 Duchenne, articular sense, 117. 
 Durante, in history of cancer, 27, 35- 
 
 Ebarth, bands of, 74. 
 
 Ehrlich, P., on mouse cancer, 50. 
 
 side-chain theory, 128. 
 Einstein, 42. 
 Elephant, lung of, 88. 
 Ellis, Mr. Havelock, 205. 
 Embryo a parasite, 85. 
 Embryomas, 52. 
 
 Embryonic tissue, invasiveness of, 38. 
 Emery, Dr. D'Este, on tumours, 271 seq. 
 Emigration as budding, 15. 
 
 in ships, 15. 
 
 Emotions, highest, physiology of, 234. 
 End -plates and energy, 104. 
 Energetics, universal working of, 9. 
 Entelechy of Driesch, 62. 
 Environment, internal, 199. 
 
 and stability of type, 177. 
 Enzymes as immune bodies, 131. 
 
 nature and working of, 149. 
 Epikouros, in N. Africa, 257 
 Epilepsy, 31. 
 Epithelium, germinal, 185. 
 
 influence on connective tissue, 43. 
 
 parent tissue of true glands, 41. 
 
 universality of, in organism, 40. 
 Erysipelas and cancer, 50. 
 Evolution, continuous, 77. 
 
 rate of, 177. 
 
 undiscovered factors of, 147. 
 Exogamy, Frazer on, 1 59. 
 Explanation, nature of, 8, 24, 128, 189, 
 
 266. 
 Exudations, in evolution, 72. 
 
 Failure, a means of progress, 65, 8l. 
 
 and repair in evolution, 175. 
 Farmaij'ion, 257 seq, 
 Farmer, Prof. J. B., nutrition and 
 
 immunity, 133. 
 Femoral sarcoma, 51. 
 Ferrier, Sir David, work on brain, 229. 
 Fibrillation, auricular, 102. 
 Filehne on action of arsenic, 136. 
 
 Filter passers, in sarcoma, 267. 
 
 Fleets as organs, 201. 
 
 Fletcher, Horace, swallowing reflexes, 
 
 205. 
 
 Fcetal bones, grafts of, 268. 
 Food, factors accessory, as " tools," 13. 
 
 as poison, 131. 
 
 taboos, and dietetics, 224. 
 Fossa ovalis in mammal, 75. 
 Fowls and sarcoma, 47, 267. 
 Frazer, Sir J. G. classificatory system, 
 189. 
 
 Psyches Task, 223. 
 
 on savage logic, 148. 
 
 Thargelian Rites, 260. 
 
 work by, 24. 
 
 Freemason, origin of word, 258. 
 Freud and racial complexes, 155. 
 Function and structure, 68. 
 
 Gallon, Sir F., eugenics and disease, 19. 
 Gaskell, W. H., and the augmentor 
 fibres, 112. 
 
 work on brain, 229. 
 Gastric ulcers and malignancy, 48. 
 Germ-cells, cases of early isolation, 
 
 185, 190. 
 Germ-plasm, the "constant" in, 201. 
 
 theory of, 61. 
 
 Germ -tracks of little importance, 188. 
 Germinal epithelium, 185. 
 Gestational immunity, 85. 
 
 Abderhalden, Emil, on, 132. 
 Giant cells, nature of nuclei, 54. 
 Giant molecules, 129. 
 Glands, ductless, as regulators, 30. 
 Gley, harmozones of, 31. 
 Gomme, Sir Lawrence, 151. 
 Gorilla, evolving perottens tertius in, 
 
 275- 
 
 Gothic architecture, stresses and failures 
 in, 67. 
 
 Granulations and sarcoma, 40. 
 
 Graphs, reading of, 123. 
 
 Graves' Disease, 23. 
 
 Green, C. E. , cancer and smoke pro- 
 ducts, 35. 
 
 Grief, a "spirit" attack, 221. 
 
 Growth, due to many agents, 91. 
 
 Guanche rain charms, 214. 
 
 Haberlandt, G., views of cell change, 
 
 196. 
 
 Haddon, Dr., 151. 
 Hundley, Mr. Sampson, multinuclear 
 
 cancer cells and blood, 54- 
 Ilartog, Prof. Marcus, on mitosis, 14.
 
 282 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Harvey, William, circulation of blood, 
 8. 
 
 Head, Dr. Henry, work on brain, 229. 
 Heart, and aneurisms, 73. 
 
 and organ-forming substances, 199. 
 
 cardiac flutter, 102. 
 
 columnse carnere, etc., 73- 
 
 continued avolution of, 77. 
 
 fibrillation, auricular, 102. 
 
 moulding of, 75. 
 
 muscular fibres in, 75- 
 
 new fibres arising in embryo, 78. 
 Heart-block, 74- 
 Hernaman-Johnson, Dr. F., cancer and 
 
 X-rays, 45. 
 
 Herring, P. F., thyroid feeding, 124. 
 His, Bundle of, 74. 
 
 conducting power, 123. 
 Histology and heredity, 185. 
 Homo Eoanthropus, 149. 
 Ilorsley, Sir Victor, work on brain, 
 
 229. 
 Hostile symbiosis, in organisms, 25. 
 
 in school and army, 244. 
 Human flesh as iood, 169. 
 Hunter, John, cremaster, 78. 
 
 on repair, 72. 
 
 tunica vaginalis, 82. 
 
 work of, 229. 
 
 Hunting and cannibalism, 168. 
 Huxley, T. H., on consciousness, 66, 
 229. 
 
 as stimulator, 233 
 
 Hydalid mole and reaction against, 86. 
 Hydraulic presses and cardiac muscle, 
 
 no. 
 
 Hymen, 205. 
 llypcrpituitarism, in malignancy, 56. 
 
 Imagination, use of, in science, 26, 144. 
 Immune bodies as catalysts, 130. 
 Immunity, as basis of life, 139. 
 
 by provoked catalysts, 132. 
 
 gestational, 85, 132. 
 
 mental, 227. 
 Immunization, a normal process, 136. 
 
 social illustrations of, 136. 
 Incest and exogamy, 145, 157, i$9- 
 Indians, Thompson River, 220. 
 Individual, any "closed system" an, 
 
 29. 
 
 Induction, value of, 19. 
 Infection theory of cancer, 32, 46, 
 
 265, seq, 
 Inhibition, 94. 
 
 and substituted action, 125. 
 k as " influence," 96. 
 
 Inhibition, by cardiac vagus, a shock 
 effect, 113. 
 
 Cushny, A. R., on, 114. 
 
 illustrations of, 119. 
 
 Lister, Joseph, on, 116. 
 
 Thomas, H. O., on, 116. 
 Internal secretions, power of, 191. 
 Invasiveness and embryonic tissues, 38. 
 Irregularity of heart, youthful, 105. 
 
 Jackson, Dr. Hughlings, on mind and 
 
 brain, 229. 
 
 Japanese wrestlers and testes, 83. 
 Jealousy, modern paternal, 152. 
 Jevons, W. S., inductions only probable, 
 
 19. 
 Joints, comparative immunity from 
 
 malignancy, 52. 
 
 Kammerer, experimental transmission, 
 
 62, 198. 
 
 Kangri cancer, 33. 
 Keekwillie holes, 220. 
 Keith, Prof. Arthur, on discoveries, 
 relative greatness of, 149. 
 
 heart muscle, 109. 
 
 hormones and racial types, 12. 
 
 modern skull, 146. 
 
 negro in U.S.A., 39. 
 
 peritoneal adhesions, 88. 
 
 rate of evolution, 177. 
 
 Wolff's Law re-stated, 7 2 - 
 Keith-Flack node, in. 
 Kettle, E. H., polymorphisms of cancer 
 
 cells, 38. 
 Knox, Dr. Robert, Becquerel rays and 
 
 fibrosis, 45. 
 
 Knowledge as catalytic, 202. 
 Krapina and Neanderthal man, 171. 
 
 Laboratory results, fallacies of, 94, 98. 
 
 Lack, Dr. Lambert, on periodontilis, 
 267. 
 
 Lactase in dogs, 133. 
 
 Lang, Andrew, Social Origins, 151. 
 
 Language of bacteriologists, 129. 
 
 Laws, general nature of, J. 
 
 Lazarus-Barlow, influence of radiation, 
 44. 
 
 Lazy tongs and heart muscle, 109. 
 
 Least Action, Principle of, in Evolu- 
 tion, 192. 
 
 Le Bon, Gustave, Psychologic des Foules, 
 246. 
 
 Leucoplakia, failure of connective 
 tissue in, 46. 
 
 Life, economy of construction, 30.
 
 INDEX 
 
 283 
 
 Life and growth, law of, 141. 
 Likeness and unlikeness, 8. 
 
 in parents and offspring, 193. 
 Lipoids, as complement, 134. 
 
 and phagocytes, 135. 
 Lister, Joseph, on inhibition, 1 16. 
 Logic of discovery, 9. 
 
 of savages, Frazer on, 148. 
 Luciani on cardiac vagus, 93. 
 Lyell, Sir Charles, 25. 
 Lymph nodes and metastatic growths, 
 
 46. 
 Lymphoid tissue, functions of, 46. 
 
 MacBride, Prof. E. W., advocate of 
 
 transmission, 90, 198. 
 M'Dougall, W., drainage theory, 118. 
 Mach, E., on explanation, 128. 
 Mackenzie, Sir J., origins of disease, 
 19. 
 
 slowing of heart, 106, 
 
 youthful irregularity of heart, 105. 
 Maine, Sir H. S., local contiguity, 
 effect of, 164. 
 
 study of jurisprudence, analogy 
 
 in, 6. 
 Malignancy, conclusions as to, 58. 
 
 a failure of balance, 47. 
 
 and the endocrines, 39. 
 
 no single cause in, 28. 
 
 social analogues, 21, 39. 
 Mamma?, origin of, 87. 
 Mammalians "born" three times, 
 
 185. 
 
 Mastication, 206. 
 Mastitis, chronic, and prostatic tablets, 
 
 191. 
 
 Materialism, 227. 
 Mathematical reasoning, 189. 
 Mathematics and biological factors, 
 
 200. 
 
 Medicine, ancient and modern, 225. 
 Memory, 232. 
 Mesentery, fixation of, 88. 
 Metabolism, social, 197 
 Metazoa, pathological origin of, 84. 
 Method, logical, of discovery, 9. 
 Mendelian variations, 63. 
 Midsummer Day, 209. 
 Mill, J, S., on analogy, 5, 6, 17. 
 Mimicry, small variations in, 89. 
 Mind, biochemical reactions of, 223. 
 
 the primitive, 207. 
 Mitosis in a colony, 1 7. 
 Mitral valve, anatomy of, 74. 
 Mnemes of Ilering-Scmun, 194. 
 Moderator band, 73. 
 
 Moore, Prof. B., French bacteriological 
 work, 130. 
 
 and Whitley, on immunity, 130. 
 
 on the Teutonic mind, 128. 
 Morality and the past, 145. 
 Morgenroth and Ascher, reversible im- 
 mune reactions, 139. 
 Morphogenetic repair in evolution, 90. 
 Multinucleated cells in cancer, 54. 
 Murphy, J. B., destruction of lymphoid 
 
 tissue, 46. 
 
 Murray, Prof. Gilbert, on Greek migra- 
 tion, 144. 
 
 on the Pharmakos, 255, 260. 
 Muscle action, independence of, 122. 
 
 and nerve, 257- 
 
 cardiac, 75, 109. 
 
 deformation processes, 97. 
 
 gastric, origin of, 80. 
 
 in scrotum, 83. 
 
 origin of, 76. 
 
 refractory period of, 96. 
 Myxcedema, 23. 
 
 Nageli, Von, on internal environment, 
 
 199. 
 
 Nahak, 218. 
 
 Napier of Merchistoun, 149. 
 Natural Selection and variation, 198. 
 Naturalness an unknown concept among 
 
 savage races, 207. 
 
 Neanderthal man, brain capacity of, 
 148. 
 
 and Krapina, 171. 
 
 disappearance of, 170. 
 
 teeth of, 171. 
 
 Necrophagy, 162, 165, 166. 
 Neo-Darwinians and orthodoxy, 183. 
 Nerves and trigger action, 102. 
 Neurons, cortical, number of, 229. 
 
 life of, 245. 
 
 Non-placentals and the fetus, 86. 
 Nuclear contents and transmission, 
 
 189. 
 
 Nucleins, 195. 
 Nucleus, "life" in, 195. 
 
 as work- and tool-shop, 14, 54, 194, 
 195. 
 
 of test-bearing protozoon, 196. 
 Nutrition a case of immunity, 139. 
 
 Old age, 197. 
 
 Onslow on rabbits' colour peroxidases, 
 
 136. 
 
 Oocytes, 186. 
 
 Opportunism of stressed organisms, 79. 
 Opsoriins, non-existence of, 135.
 
 284 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Optic vesicle, Lewis's experiment, 199. 
 Organ-forming substances, 198. 
 Organisms, biologic conception of, 184. 
 
 as republics, 29. 
 Orthodoxy in science, 184. 
 Osier, Sir William, on scientific neo- 
 logisms, 127. 
 
 Osmosis in cardiac muscle, 97. 
 Osteomegalies, 55. 
 
 Pace-maker, inertia and the vagus, 113. 
 Paget, Sir J., constitutional theory of 
 
 cancer, 32. 
 
 Paget's Disease, fibrosis in, 42. 
 Panniculus, primitive, muscle fibres in 
 
 scrotum, 83. 
 
 Paraffins and mental valencies, 253. 
 Parasite (supposed) of cancer, 270. 
 
 in X-ray cancer, 270. 
 Parathyroids, 31, 191. 
 Parsimony, law of, in science, 188. 
 Pathological variations, 64. 
 Pathologists and the sociological 
 
 method, 10. 
 Pavlov, J. P., conditioned reflexes, 87, 
 
 118, 222, 229, 231. 
 Pelobates bred in parental body cavity, 
 
 193- 
 
 Peritoneal adhesions, 88. 
 
 Peroneus tertius, fibres of, in gorilla, 
 
 275. 
 and transmission, 275. 
 
 Peyer's Patches in typhoid, 134. 
 
 Phagocytes and lipoids, 135. 
 
 Physical laws, ultimate, 189. 
 
 Physician as magician, 209. 
 
 Piltdown man, 146. 
 
 Pithecanthropus erectus, 177. 
 
 Pituitary, possible function of, in sar- 
 coma, 55. 
 and growth, 31. 
 
 Placenta, a compromise growth, 86 
 
 Planck, theory of Quanta and critical 
 periods, 177. 
 
 Politics, modern, a chapter in anthro- 
 pology, 179. 
 
 Politics and physiology, I. 
 
 Pre-cancerous stages, 46. 
 
 Pre-embryonic cell-history, 186. 
 
 Primal Law, by Atkinson, 150. 
 
 Proliferation in malignancy, 38. 
 
 Proof and illustration, 14. 
 
 Prostate and chronic mastitis, 191. 
 
 Protoplasm and " tools," 12. 
 
 Protozoan tests and nucleus, 196. 
 
 Provoked catalysts, 133. 
 
 Psycho-analysis, Freudian, 155. 
 
 Psychoids, rudimentary, 198. 
 Psychologic des foules, 246. 
 Pyramidal tract and long paths, 232. 
 Pysemsky on adrenalin effects, 191. 
 Public schools, training in, 242 seq. 
 
 Racial types, Keith on, 12. 
 Radiology as factor of discovery, 27. 
 Radium in cancer, 45. 
 Rain-makers, 213. 
 Reciprocal innervation, 107. 
 Reflex response to orders, 250. 
 Reflexes, conditioned, 87, 118, 222, 
 
 229, 231. 
 
 Rejuvenescence in malignancy, 49. 
 Repair in evolution, 10, 65. 
 
 general laws of, 71. 
 
 as cause of variation, 198. 
 Reproductive cell, important stages of, 
 
 187. 
 
 Republics in organisms, 29. 
 "Resistance" to fresh stimulation, 
 
 233- 
 Rests of Cohnheim, 27. 
 
 of Ribbert, 35, 140. 
 Reversible reactions, social illustration 
 
 of, 140. 
 
 Ribbert, post-natal "rests," 35. 
 Rise of the Greek Epic, 144. 
 Round-celled sarcoma, 52. 
 Rous, Peyton, fowl sarcoma, 267. 
 Rushbrooke, Prof., re J. Lister, 
 
 116. 
 Russ, Dr. Sydney, on lymphocytosis in 
 
 cancer, 45. 
 
 Sachs on reversible immune reactions, 
 
 139- 
 
 St. John's Day, 208. 
 Salmon, malignancy in, 34. 
 Sanitation and magic, 218. 
 Sarcoma, deadliness of round-celled, 
 52. 
 
 and granulations, 40. 
 
 disease of youth, 41. 
 
 femoral, 57. 
 
 filter-passers in, 267. 
 
 in fowls, 47, 267. 
 
 induction of so-called, 5- 
 
 in old age, 55. 
 
 round-celled and granulation tissue, 
 
 40. 
 
 Scar-tissue, 48. 
 Science, comparative study of, 203. 
 
 and explanation, 10. 
 
 narrow views of, 64. 
 
 national neglect of, 9.
 
 INDEX 
 
 285 
 
 Schafer, Prof. E. A., adrenalin and in- 
 testinal muscle, 191. 
 
 cardiac muscle fibres, 109. 
 
 histology of ova and sperm-cells, 186. 
 Scrotum, a badly repaired failure, 82. 
 
 of the boar, 82. 
 
 Second wind and the tricuspid, 77. 
 Senescence, C. M. Child's work, 196. 
 
 loss of catalytic tools, 197. 
 
 nature of, 48. 
 Shaken troops, 251. 
 Shark, heart of, in. 
 Shattock, S. G., on embryomas, 52. 
 
 and co-workers, cancer experiments, 
 
 268, 269. 
 
 Sherrington, O. S., on inhibition, 116. 
 Ship as zygote, 1 5. 
 Shock, nature of, IOO. 
 
 results of, 99. 
 
 social analogies, ioo, 105. 
 Skull, modern, in Pleistocene times, 
 146. 
 
 changes in, 147. 
 Smith, Robertson, 24. 
 Social analogies for shock, 100, 105. 
 Social and nuclear changes, 195. 
 "Social" disturbances in organisms, 
 
 23- 
 Societies as "closed systems," or 
 
 organisms, 9. 
 Sociology, physiological method in, 
 
 2, 6. 
 Soldiers, and intellect evolved by war, 
 
 ?73- 
 
 Specialism, abuse of, 3. 
 Specificity, either "tools," or magic, 
 
 190. 
 Spencer and Gillen on inter-class tribal 
 
 necrophagy, 162. 
 Spencer, Herbert, Sociological Method, 
 
 6. 
 
 "Transcendental Physiology," 5. 
 Spencer, Dr. H.B., on ovarian tumours, 
 
 37- 
 
 Spermatoblasts, descent of, 186. 
 Sperm-cells, development of, 187. 
 
 in malignancy, 38. 
 Spinoza, reference to, 146. 
 Sponge-work, primary vascular, in 
 
 primitive ventricle, 76. 
 Spontaneous variations, 71. 
 Stability of type, 177. 
 Staff of army, 240. 
 
 Starling, Prof. E. II., on cell division 
 and time element, 90, 193, 196. 
 
 hormones. 191. 
 
 Law of the Heart, 65. 
 
 Starling, Prof. E. H., on organisms as 
 
 "new creations," 90. 
 Static elements in civilization, 197. 
 Stefani, on cardiac vagus, 109. 
 Sterility and bathing, 219. 
 Stomach, dilatation and repair of, 80. 
 
 evolution of, 79, 80. 
 Strain and muscle evolution, 275. 
 Stress, reaction to, a principle of con- 
 struction, 67. 
 
 Structure, main factors of, 91. 
 Substrates and enzymes, 133. 
 Surface tension in muscle, 97. 
 Sutton, Dr. H. G., 77. 
 Symbiosis, hostile, 29, 101. 
 
 and reversible reactions, 140. 
 
 key to malignancy, 30, 32. 
 
 political, 30. 
 
 training, use in, 244. 
 Synapse, "fused" in manias, 233. 
 Synaptic blocks, 233. 
 
 Tachycardia, meaning of, 93. 
 Tcenia solium and cannibalism, 179. 
 Testes and growth, 31. 
 
 tunica vag-tnah'sof, 82. 
 Testiconda, and cremaster muscle, 
 
 78. 
 
 Thargelian Festival, Frazer on, 260. 
 Theologians and reaction, 227. 
 Thiersch on cancer, 34, 35. 
 Thinking as neuronal tonus, 230. 
 Thomas, H. O., on inhibition, 116. 
 Thompson River Indians, 220. 
 Thought, possibility of measurement, 
 
 234- 
 Time, relativity of, in reproduction, 
 
 192. 
 
 Tolerance as immunity, 136. 
 Tools, catalytic, 12 
 
 and organic complexity, 199. 
 
 and protoplasm, 12. 
 
 chromosomatic in germ-cell, 186. 
 Toussenel on cannibalism, 168. 
 Tower and transmission, 62. 
 Toxicity of foods, 131. 
 Transmission, mechanism of, II. 
 
 by tool-adoption, 16. 
 
 use of, by men of science, 189. 
 Trial and error in evolution, 67. 
 Tribal spirit, 24. 
 Tribes, subdivision of, 158. 
 Tricuspid valve, functional incompet- 
 ence of, 75, 77. 
 
 and second wind, 77. 
 Trigger action of nerves, 102. 
 Trochilida?, colour in, 169.
 
 286 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Trophoblasts, erosive action of, 37. 
 
 in gestation, 54. 
 Trypsin, origin of, 133. 
 Tubal dilatation, 8l. 
 
 pregnancies, 86. 
 Tuberculosis, origin of human, 167. 
 
 possible influence on human charac- 
 ter, 82. 
 
 Tylor, E. B., 24. 
 Typhoid, 134. 
 
 relapse in, 138. 
 
 Uexkiill, J. Von., on science and order, 
 
 125. 
 Uterus, evolutionary history of, 85 
 
 seq. 
 a tubal dilatation repaired, 86. 
 
 Vagus, cardiac, as "depressant," 98. 
 as part of autonomic, 1 12. 
 real function of, 105, 107. 
 intestinal and cardiac, 112. 
 Variation as characteristics, cause of, 
 
 89. 
 
 definitely caused, 78. 
 during embryonic life, 198. 
 minute, 62, 188. 
 social, in late war, 20. 
 unfavourable, 13, 63, 70. 
 Varro, M. T., on malaria, 125. 
 
 De Re Rustica, 277. 
 Vaso-dilator centre the vagus centre, 
 
 in. 
 Vegetarians and Neanderthal man, 
 
 171, 172. 
 Verworn, Max, and the giant molecule, 
 
 129. 
 
 Vested interests as slowers of meta- 
 bolism, 197. 
 Vourmak, Turkic word, 256. 
 
 Waldeyer on cancer, 34, 35. 
 War, a factor in evolution, 20, 167. 
 Warfare, in the body, 30. 
 and hunting, 168. 
 and immunity, 138. 
 and variation, 2. 
 Washing at birth, 205. 
 Water, and menstruous women, 212. 
 nature of, 207. 
 spirits and saints, 208. 
 Weakening by vagus, 121. 
 Weber brothers, 104. 
 Weinland, Ernst, on cane-sugar and 
 
 invertin, 132. 
 
 Weismann, A., and modern endocrino- 
 logy, 1 88. 
 
 as pure theorist, 200. 
 translation of his terms into known 
 
 factors, 189. 
 
 Weismannism modified, II. 
 Wells, sacred, 211. 
 Williams, Sir John, pregnancies and 
 
 ovarian tumours, 37. 
 Wilson, germ-cell histology, 186. 
 Wilson, R. N. M'Nair, meaning of 
 
 tachycardia, 93. 
 
 Wolff, Julius, on bone-growth, 64, 65. 
 Wolffs Law, 71. 
 
 re-stated by Keith, 72. 
 Words, sound signals to reflexes, 231. 
 Wrightson, Sir T. , Theory of Hearing, 
 
 103. 
 
 Writing as graphic verbal reactions, 
 230. 
 
 X-ray cancer, 27 seq., 273. 
 dermatitis, 43. 
 
 Youthful cardiac arrhythmia, 105. 
 Zygote, combined catalysts of, 187.
 
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