On the relative sizes of the organs of rats and mice bearing malignant new growths

The object of the present investigation has been to determine the effects of the growth of tumours on the weight of the principal organs of the body. The fundamental conception on which the work is based is that the weights of the different organs of normal animals bear a relatively constant ratio to the total weight of the body. Such investigations are capable of throwing light on many debatable points of cancer metabolism, and give important indications of promising directions for future more detailed work. The previous investigations of workers in the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (Cramer, Haaland, Murray), and recently by Moreschi, in Ehrlich's Institute, have dealt with this subject from the standpoint of the ratio of tumour-weight and the influence of the former on the latter and on the normal growth of the body. In the present investigation a closer analysis of the factors is attempted, in reasonable expectation that under the influence of the physical and chemical changes taking place in the bodies of animals bearing tumours, definite aberrations from the normal relations may be produced. From a consideration of these aberrations it may be possible to infer the nature of these changes.