Evidence that Cancer is not a Simple Mendelian Recessive

Abstract

INTRODUCTORY The fact that the tendency to certain forms of cancer is hereditary in mice has been established for some years (Tyzzer 1908 (29), Murray 1911 (27)), and suggested, though not demonstrated, by Haaland 1905 (28) and others. For a time the medical profession was not very willing to accept this fact. Their experience had dealt with human beings, who had bred so slowly —and had produced such a small number of progeny from any one mating, and were so difficult to examine and diagnose by the certain method of autopsy, that the details and method of inheritance were none too clear. It was therefore entirely natural that the profession did not at once agree with the conclusions of those engaged in laboratory research. Probably no series of studies has done more to influence gradually the opinion of the medical profession than that of twenty-six reports published by Slye, Holmes, and Wells, from 1913 to 1927 inclusive (1–26). The numbers of mice recorded in this series by Slye are extensive, and the causes of death as stated in the pedigrees given by her are sufficiently definite in form to have led eventually to a great deal of confidence in her work on the part of medical men. More than twelve years ago Slye's attention was directed by a short note in Science (Little 1915 (30)) to an elementary error of fundamental importance in the published genetic interpretation of her work. This error was such that it reflected a reasonable doubt on the soundness of her genetic training and background. In ordinary cases of color inheritance, it would, after the first note, have been quite proper to have let the matter rest, for little harm can ever be done by the publication of erroneous genetic interpretation of such relatively unimportant matters as genes for color or color patterns.