Kapronczay Károly szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 230-233. (Budapest, 2015)
KÖZLEMÉNYEK - Elek Gábor—Müller Miklós: Bauer Ervin és a rákkutatás
90 Comm, de Hist. Artis Med. 230-233 (2015) to immunity but he called his procedure simply as ‘tissue chemotherapy’ or ‘reparation of the carcinogenic disturbance of the organs’. The Italian and German specialists started a desperate, vicious and hopless debate (Blumenthal 1914a; Fichera 1914b). Since the system of tissue (histocompatibility) antigens (see Elek 1966; Schmidt, H. 1955 932-935, 938-941, 951-955) was at that time unknown, the controversy seems meaningless today in its scientific aspects - but certainly not in its personal aspects (see below). Bauer s principle, a theoretical model of cell division and cancer therapy Bauer and his wife, Stephanie Szilárd, left Hungary, probably late 1919 (Müller 2005). After a brief period in Göttingen, they moved to Prague in 1920. Bauer started his experimental research on cell division and cancer here, in the Institute of General Biology and Experimental Morphology of the Charles University directed by Vladislav Ritzicka (Rydl 1958). Bauer carried out his cell division experiments on eggs of the roundworm, Ascaris'. The choice of this model was not fortunate (see later) but the results were completely up to his expectations. Bauer used an ester of butyric acid (tributyrin) to decrease the surface tension of the incubation medium and observed accelerated cell division (see above). Table A. Application of Bauer s non-equilibrium principle to modelling of cell division. Bauer’s ideas Comments 1 The necessity of the Bauer’s principle T he main insight of Bauer is the realization that, even if we are materialists, the fundamental principles of chemistry and physics are by themselves insufficient to explain the mechanism and course of biological phenomena (Eayop 2002 163-164). Clear understanding cannot be achieved by aimless repetitions of measurements and observations. They are of use only if they are able to verify or reject a defined Drevious idea about the mechanism (Bauer 1923a). It is possible for example that overcoming the insufficiency of the cell surface in relation to metabolism is in the background of cell division. However, this biological ngz cessitv bv itself cannot explain the cause (mechanism) of the cell division. To know the cause we need a previous theoretical model, which should correspond to the fundamentals of contemporary biology. 2 Opinions about A ccording to Bauer the first fundamental law of biology is his non-equilibrium principle. In his words ‘all living organisms are characterized by being a system that is not in equilibrium in its environment and is so organised that it transforms the sources andforms of energy taken up from its environment into such state that acts against the establishment of equilibrium in the given environment’ (Bauer 1920 10, 12-13). Bauer’s principle was considered a trivial feature of living organisms (BuHŐepe 1984). Man-made governing devices may use the energy of their surrounding to maintain their non- equilibrium state (oscillators, etcl. The inversion of Bauer’s principle (all systems which are not in equilibrium ... and transform ... in such state ... are living organisms) is not valid. Bauer’s principle therefore cannot be a fundamental tenet of biology. Bauer did not specify the species used. 3aeadoecKuu (1926) assumes it was A. lumbricoides.
