Concerning the Origin of Malignant Tumours by Theodor Boveri. Translated and annotated by Henry Harris

Abstract

In the year 1902, I tacked onto the results of my experiments on the development of doubly fertilised sea urchin eggs the speculation that malignant tumours might be the consequence of a certain abnormal chromosome constitution, which in some circumstances can be generated by multipolar mitoses (Boveri, 1902). I had intended, even at that time, to put that assumption on a firmer footing in a separate article. But the scepticism with which my ideas were met when I discussed them with investigators who act as judges in this area induced me to abandon the project. I had to admit that a hypothesis in this field can be of value only if it leads to targeted new research and, above all, to new experimental investigations. And who ought it to be to decide to undertake such investigations if not the originator of the hypothesis himself? So, for some time now, I have carried out experiments that seemed to me to be relevant, admittedly without success so far, but my convictions on this score have nonetheless not been shattered.It was the appearance of an article by O. Aichel (Aichel, 1911) that first prompted me to take the decision to communicate the hypothesis, and the evidence that supported it, in greater detail, even though I had essentially nothing more to offer than I had done ten years previously. To explain the origin of tumours, Aichel's article relies on facts that I had established in sea urchins and that gave rise to my own conception of tumours. But the hypothesis that multipolar mitoses might generate tumours is amalgamated by Aichel with his own view, published earlier, that the initial event in the generation of a malignant tumour is the fusion of a tissue cell with a leucocyte(1). This notion casts the key elements of the hypothesis for which I am responsible in an essentially different light, so much so that it has become a matter of importance to me, now that my views have again become the subject of discussion, to set them out in their original form for readers familiar with the subject. But, in the end, I had another motive. The idea that there might be a connection abnormal mitoses and malignant tumours has but it has been so that in the it is if at The that the idea to But can nonetheless and the more that now have might a of their connection with malignant tumours. might as a to that idea has been has been that some of the of malignant such as might be on tissue by their fusion in with of tumour with has not been but fusion with and is that malignant tumours that have been by the fusion in of the tumour with tissue of the but this has in the of the tumour is not at of and tumour have been and to in the so more than the tumour and to be responsible for the of the tumour this as a I have in of the of tumour it is that I am of in the that I the of facts and that I not set by But this article even more as is so the when an an a field with which is who has this to can to offer to investigators who have years and even of and to the tumour But there is that has to be The tumour is a cell and, at the it is not that a who to certain in the cell might be to that the of tumours but that nonetheless their I that be with in some who this and in the that the tumour is a not a this that the the of a malignant tumour is to be not in the of the malignant but in the of the of the tissue in which the tumour not a is of his as an the that have met with a of the is that his views on the origin of malignant tumours by his on sea urchins and to my in the I not it as on me to my views of my it be without is only I and that is who and on put ideas that to my his views on the of abnormal chromosome in the of malignant tumours have been as as I can I have to might at the for their there such in conception and in ideas and my own that the hypothesis I am now might elements that in as is as the originator of as a The chromosome that on in of the of but the of the and the of who had the of abnormal in tumours, and to have been the first to that the abnormal chromosome by mitoses was an of malignant this as a of the of tumour I only that in this field might not this I to my to my in in in and to the of the of of for their on the of tumours to me to be supported by the The of even the malignant tumours can be tissue The of this abnormal to be in the tumour not in their and malignant tumours have in I have to with who a the In my view, there be a a tumour that in the as the tissue which it is and that to me that the of a tumour a malignant so is a of the as the appearance of a malignant tumour at some in tissue is a of with to the views discussed in that that not an event the but of tissue to as for of have a but have not in not for the of malignant tumours. in the of and by the of that which is a at the of the is by that the of the another for the of tumour own on which is discussed in some leads to that the of a malignant tumour is a is that when a tumour malignant that is again by a event the tumour and not by of a of not