ABSTRACTS EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES; ANIMAL TUMORS Similarity between Fasciations in Plants and Tumors in Animals and Their Genetic Basis, D. F. JONES. Science 81: 75-76, 1935. The author compares tumors in animals with fasciations in plants-irregular de- velopment of the growing points of the main stem or branches. Both are forms of un- regulated growth, though fasciations do not exhibit the malignant features which characterize many animal neoplasms. In some cases fasciated plants are able to reproduce, and all their descendants show the same abnormality. In many others, fasciations occur only in one part of a plant and so sporadically that they seem not to have any basis in inheritance; yet they appear more frequently in some germinal lines than in others. Fasciations can develop only in growing points. In animals, similar growths may occur wherever there are dividing cells, as particularly in glands and in tissues regenerat- ing after an injury. It is possible that unregulated proliferation may be the result of chromosomal unbalance, and significant that tar, aniline dyes, x-rays, and radium, all of which may initiate unregulated growth, will also cauae chromosomal aberrations. If these act indirectly through the manifestation of hemizygous recessive genes or the total loss of genes necessary for normal growth, or directly as a result of chromosome unbalance in particulrtr regions, it is easy to understand why unregulated growths occur sporadically but with higher frequencies in some families than in others. [Dibenzanthracene is not, as the author says, the active principle of coal tar, but an entirely synthetic product.] WM.H. WOOLOM Rae of Roentgen Rays in Experimental Carcinogenesis. ANTOINEBI~CL~ZRE. Le r8le des rayons de Roentgen dans la carcinog6n6se expkrimentale, Schweiz. med. Wchnschr. 15: 679-681, 1934. A comparative study of roentgen cancer in man and the lower animals shows that it develops upon an ulcer frequently in the former and invariably in the latter. In both it is a slow destruction of the activities and life of the cell rather than excitation of its proliferative capacity that terminates in malignancy. This end-result is to be regarded as a more or less accidental complication, for the r81e of the x-ray is restricted to prepara- tion of the soil. The actual cause of cancer remains still unrecognized, but it seems to be some factor quite independent of the cell changes which prepare for and favor its inception. The hypothesis of an external agent seems the moet reasonable, WM. H. WOGLOM Production of Tumors with Cultures of the Parasite of the Flemer- Jobling Carcinoma, M. M. NEWIADOMSHI.Ueber die Hervorrufung von Geschwiilsten durch Kulturen der Parasiten des Flexner-Joblingstammes, Cancer, Bruxelles 11 : 69-74, 1934. The author has found an animal parasite in all of the 2000 animal tumors which he has examined during the past four yews, whatever their histological structure, and be- lieves that the tumor cell is but one stage in the extraordinarily complicated life cycle of this organism. The parasite, which belongs to the Sporozoa, has been successfully grown in culture (Cancer, Bruxelles 10: 31, 135, 1933. Abst. in Am. J. Cancer 21: 112, 663, 1934). In the present paper Newiadomski describes the production of Flexner-Jobling tumors by inoculation of cultures. The resulting growths contained a large proportion of connective tissue and often underwent early degeneration. Their fibrous nature is referred to a reaction on the part of the host against a virus weakened by the unfavorable conditions attending cultivation in vitro. 837 838 . ABSTRAUTS In addition, the author has isolated from another transplantable neoplasm (Sinel- nikoff-Kritschewski) a I' cancer toxin " which killed rats a few hours after intravenous injection. It gave a characteristic allergic reaction when introduced into the skin of cancer patients, but none in healthy persons. [The abstractor would be very wary of fibrotic nodules in an animal which, like the rat, responds to local irritation with a vigorous connective-tissue reaction, particularly if they broke down readily.] WM. H. WOGLOM Studies of Cell Potencies and some Relations to Reoplada, STANLFYP. REIMANN.Ann. Int. Med. 8: 504-508, 1934, The author sums up his paper with the following definition. A neoplasm is a mass of cells which arises from and continues to proliferate within an organism a~ a result of and in direct proportion to their degree of internal qualitative differences from the other cells of the organism with respect to the potencies of differentiation and organization particularly. WM. H. WOQLOM Influence of Ovarian and Anterior Pituitary Hormones upon Experimental Tar Cancer, E. MAURIEIOAND E. DEBIA~I.Influenza degli ormoni ovarici e preipofisari sul cancro sperimentale da catrame, Monitore ostet.-ginec. 5: 321-302, 1933. Mice were painted with tar two or three times a week. A control group of 53 animals received only the tarring. Experimental groups of 15 mice each were subjected, in addition, to several procedures, utilizing prolan, folliculin, and corpus luteum extract. The number of animals used is too small to permit of generalizations as to the effects. Ten photomicrographs and a bibliography are included. c. D: HAAQENBEN Internal Secretion of the Ovary and Tumor Growth, I-IV, Y. YANO.Innere Sekretion des Ovariums und Geschwulstwachstum (I-IV), Acta Dermat. 22: 140, 1933; 23: 18-22, 1934. The Honda rat sarcoma, inoculated into adult rats nine days after removal of both ovaries, grew much more vigorously thhn in controls until toward the end of the second week; after this time the difference was not so distinct. [The number of animals in this experiment is not mentioned.] Total castration five or seven days after sarcoma inoculation resulted in stimulation, which became evident two days [eic]after the operation and persisted until the end of the aecond week. At a later period there wa8 no difference between the tumors in castrated and normal animals. There were 10 castrated and 10 control rats in this experiment. The tumor generally receded when inoculated shortly befor8 or during pregnancy. Various preparations of ovarian follicle stimulated groyth, on the whole, whereas those of corpus luteum had some inhibitory action, both in vivo and in vitro. WM. H. WOQLOM Metaplasia of Uterine Epithelium Produced by Chronic Oestrin Administration, H. SELYB,D. L. THOMBON,AND J. B. COLLIP. Nature 135: 65-66, 1935. The synthesis of polycyclic compounds with both estrogenic and carcinogenic properties, the presence of estrin in cancers and in the blood of tumor-bearing male mice, and the correlation between the amount of estrin in the body and the incidence of spontaneous mammary carcinoma in susceptible strains of mice, suggest some connection between epithelial growths and the female sex hormone. Metaplasia from columnar to stratified epithelium has been noted in the seminal vesicles and coagulating glands of mice end rats treated with estrin, but analogous effects in female animals have not yet been reported. It is true that treatment with estrin and corpus luteum hormone has been said to enhance the atypical epithelial proliferation produced by traumatizing the cervix uteri in monkeys; but since this proliferation occurred in 8 region in which squa- mous epithelium is normally present it oannot be determined whether metaplasia occurred or not. The authors report the production of complete metaplasia of the cylindrical uterine epithelium into stratified squamous epithelium with kerstinization, in 4 out of 8 EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES ; ANIMAL TUMORS 839 castrates [kind of animal not stated], after the daily intraperitoneal administration for ten weeks of 30-607 of oestrone in oil (crystalline folliculin). The mammary glands showed distinct duct proliferation with some formation of alveoli; these changes were as advanced in biopsy specimens removed two weeks after the beginning of treatment as at the end of the experiment. In another series, 0.1-0.3 C.C. of 0.1 per cent oestrone in corn oil was placed in one horn of the uterus of each of 6 adult castrated rats, escape of the oil being prevented by ligation. The animals had been treated previously with moderate doses of oestrone intraperitoneally in order to distend the uterus. They were killed on the fourth day after filling the uterus. The oestrin-treated horn showed signs of commencing meta- plasia in 3 cases and complete metaplasia to stratified squamous epithelium in one. [In an editorial summary on page 72 of the same number of Nature it is stated that the authors " now report cancer symptoms in castrated female rats injected with oil- solutions of the sex hormone." This statement is not supported by the context of the article.] WM. H. WOGLOM Results of Inoculation with a Transplantable Spindle-cell Sarcoma (Honda) of the White Rat, I-IV, Y. YANO. Impfversuche mit einem transplantablen Spindel- zellensatcom (Honda) bei weissen Ratten (I-IV), Acta Dermat. 23 : 15-17, 1934. The Honda rat sarcoma, in the course of 54 generations in 955 rats, took in 74.4 per cent of the animals, failed in 11.6 per cent, and underwent early absorption in 14.0 per cent. Growth was distinctly better in younger rats (up to 59 gm. in weight), and some- what more vigorous in the fall months, Rats refractory to a first inoculation were often (80 per cent) resistant to a second, while those in which a tumor had regressed were almost always so (98 per cent). " Superinoculation )) (reinoculation of rats with growing tumors) succeeded only when carried out very soon after inoculation of the first tumor. It exerted no influence upon this growth. Rats in which a second attempt failed were invariably resistant to a third inoculation (180 days after the first). WM. H. WOGLOM Effect of Malignant Tumours on the Hypophysis, C. S: MCEUEN,H. SELYEAND D.