Specific relationships in neoplastic disease

There is an interesting story about Louis Pasteur, told a René Dubos, which bears on a discussion of specific, causation-related relationships in human neoplastic disease as a primary focus of biomedical research. The conceptual/axiomatic way in which Pasteur thought about infectious disease remains entirely relevant to efficacious, operationally-relevant thought about neoplastic disease. Approaches to the comprehension and control of neoplastic disease will almost certainly require organization of thought and effort within larger causation-related frameworks.