Carcinoma of the mamma : read in the Section of Pathology at the Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association, held in Nottingham, July 1892 / by Harold J. Stiles.

  • Stiles, Harold J. (Harold Jalland), 1863-1946.
Date:
[1892]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Carcinoma of the mamma : read in the Section of Pathology at the Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association, held in Nottingham, July 1892 / by Harold J. Stiles. 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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    Reprinted for the Author from the BnixiSH Medical Journal, Sept. 24,1892. / CAECINOMA OF THE MAMMA. Read in the Section of Pathology at the Annual Meeting of the British Medical AssociatioTit held in I^ottinghdTn, July 1892. By Harold J. Stiles, M.B., F.E.C.S.Edin., Assistant to the Professor of Surgery, University of Edinburgh. Me. Stiles prefaced his remarks by demonstrating a series of photographs with the limelight to illustrate the morbid anatomy and histology of carcinoma of the mamma. He was, he said, indebted to the surgical staff of toe Edinburgh Eoyal Infirmary, and of Chalmers Hospital, Edinburgh, for toe material for investigation. During the past three years he had examined over a hundred breasts affected with carcinoma. He had to thank Mr. Andrew Pringle fpr the beautiful photographs he had made of the microscopic pre- parations. His (Mr. Stiles’s) observations led him to the following conclusions 1. That the cancer in about 90 per cent, of the cases as- sumed the form of a single, non-encapsulated, clearly defined, hut microscopically infiltrating tumour. 2. That although the naked-eye appearances of the tumours varied considerably, their histological structure was essen- tially the same in all, consisting, that is, of clusters of modi- fied epithelial cells situated in the lymph spaces and lymph- atic vessels of a vascular connective tissue stroma. 3. That the epithelial elements of the tumour differed so widely from the epithelial cells of the adjacent and surround- ing gland parenchyma that the old term “cancer cells” might with advantage be applied to them. In properly pre- pared sections the two kinds of cells, when viewed in the same field, might readily be distinguished from one another. The acinous epithelial cell of the resting mammary gland possessed a small spheroidal nucleus with abundance of chromatine uniformly distributed throughout it. The cells were almost invariably uninucleated ; mitotic figures were rarely met with, and fragmentation of the nucleus did not occur. The perinuclear substance was small in amount. Swollen and degenerated epithelial cells were not infrequently seen heaped up in the ducts. The nucleus of the cancer cell, on the other hand, was two or three times the size of that of a normal epithelial cell. The chromatine was relatively much less in amount; the nuclear membrane was very dis- tinct, and the whole nucleus presented a distinctly vesicular appearance. Cells undergoing normal, and in some cases abnormal, mitosis were met with abundantly. Multinu- cleated cells and cells with fragmented nuclei were common, especially in rapidly-growing tumours. The cancer cell might contain one or more leucocytes in its interior and some-