13 OCTOBER 1928, Page 16

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—With respect to the

article on cancer, published in your recent issue, I beg to draw attention to the fact that both Mr. Cresswell's and Professor Warburg's theories were anticipated in a brochure published by myself in 1908. Forestalling, as it did at the time, the later discoveries of biochemical science, the theory originated, as many pre- mature conceptions have originated, through reversing orthodox principles. In this instance it was the reversal

of Harvey's principles of the circulation of the blood. Oxygen, as the fundamental concept, constituted the physical or cell unit of life, and not the corpuscles. Evidently advance in biochemistry tends towards a modification of Harvey's theory, as it does towards the true solution of the cancer problem. Moreover, cannot the query raised by the writer of the article in question, as to why differences occur between ordered and disordered growth, be satis- factorily answered by exposure of the processes of photo- synthesis ?

The high energy—supplied through natural sunlight— necessary for producing healthy and vital tissue must, per- force, be sadly lacking through a commissariat system which fails. in a continuous supply 'of naturally fresh, not preserved,