Abstract
ON the hypothesis of senescence elaborated by Robertson (“Chemical Basis of Growth and Senescence,” 1923), adult tissue can only revert to a reproductive phase when the so-called kern-plasma relation and nutrient level of its elements has been reduced, and the inhibitory products of previous growth (autocatalysts) have been—and continue to be—removed. But Gye and Barnard have shown that ultramicroscopic organisms occur in (and can be cultivated from) the fluids derived from—at least—some cancerous tissues. Such ultramicroscopic organisms also exhibit specificity. Let Robertson's hypothesis be accepted, then it is a reasonable assumption, which can probably be tested, that these ultramicroscopic organisms may primarily be feeding on the products of autocatalysis in the tissues in which they are found. If, therefore, these organisms could be cultivated in fluids derived from healthy tissues homologous with those from which they were derived, or even in the tissues themselves, partial proof of the assumption would be obtained.
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X. On Experimental Growth in situ. Nature 121, 576 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/121576a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/121576a0
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