Abstract
SEVERAL of the papers in the Ninth Scientific Report on the Investigations of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (London: Taylor and Francis, 1930. 20s.) deal with the fowl tumours which can be transmitted from bird to bird by tumour extracts filtered through filters so fine that the infective filtrate contains nothing large enough to be clearly visible under the highest powers of the microscope. The nature of this ‘agent’ is the most crucial question of current theoretical cancer research. It may, on one hand, be analogous to the invisible viruses which are associated with so many infectious diseases in animals and plants; it may, on the other hand, be a special example of the chemical substances arising from the disintegration or injury of cells which promote tissue growth. The ‘agent’ by which transmission is effected may, in short, arise in the cancer cell or may come into the body from outside.
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