The Morton lecture on cancer and cancerous diseases : delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England on Friday, Nov. 11, 1887 / by Sir James Paget.

  • Paget, James, Sir, 1814-1899.
Date:
1887
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Morton lecture on cancer and cancerous diseases : delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England on Friday, Nov. 11, 1887 / by Sir James Paget. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    of the specific and micro-parasitic diseases, a group in whicli there has been progress towards both preventive and remedial treatment. It is of this last relation that I propose especially to speak; and I shall try to show that it indicates a method in which cancer and cancerous diseases should be studied more thoroughly than they usually are or have been. Let me say that I purposely speak of ' groups' of diseases. I would not attempt to define what shall be called tumours, whether innocent or cancerous, or what diseases shall be called specific. I would rather under- take, if it were necessary, to show the inaccuracy or in- sufficiency of any definition yet given. Definitions, if they are to be more than convenient helps to arrange- ments, belong only to sciences more exact than pathology can yet be. It is better, at present, to think of diseases as in groups with borders that are not clearly marked: or as of nations with ill-defined f I'ontiers, and with inhabitants intermingling and even intei'marrying. We may find typical examples of diseases as of peoples; it will be from such examples that I shall take my illustrations; and these typical examples we may describe and may call by distinct names; and these names are convenient for nomenclatures and registration, for indexes and catalogues; but we must use them very cautiously in any searching study of pathology. Cancer and cancerous diseases agree with the simple or innocent tumours, such as the fatty tumours and over- growths, the fibrous and fibroid, the simply cartilaginous, and the like, in that they are all growths; structures growing with some degree of likeness to the natural structures of the body, especially of the part in which they are placed, but growing as if with a self-possessed power of maintaining and increasing themselves. With