The properties of the nervous system and the two-growth-types (egg-sperm) concept of carcinogenesis

Abstract

Some common morphological and functional features of the sperm and of the neuroblast (above all the resistance of the egg once fertilized to penetration of further sperms and of the embryonic cell once innervated to additional innervation) point to their developmental relationship, viz. to continued existence of the sperm, following temporary disappearance and genetic interaction within the egg, in the form of a neuroblast. The egg and the sperm would thus give origin to the two basic growth types of the vertebrate body, viz. the cellular-divisional (of the non-nervous tissues) related to the egg and the neural-extensive originating in the sperm and characterized by sprouting of processes even several decimeters long from a single nerve cell body. The nervous system, in addition to its intricate functions, represents an extremely dense feltwork of nervous trunks, branches and fibres, the ‘nervous skeleton’ (6), the product of the extensive neural growth which is ‘stuffed’ with the products of the cellular divisional proliferation of the other, non-nervous tissues. The absence of nerves (or of normal nerves) within the malignant tumours points to cellular ‘escape’ from the limiting confines of the nervous skeleton as the biological cause of malignancy: the ‘escaped’ cells pursue the one-growth type way of life instead of the normal two-growth-types way, viz. they revert back towards the egg-condition and acquire embryonic features. Introduction of neuroblasts into the malignant tumour aimed at re-establishment of its nervous skeleton should convert the malignant lesion into a benign one.