Contributions to the physiology and pathology of the breast and its lymphatic glands / by Charles Creighton. With illustrations.

  • Creighton, Charles, 1847-1927.
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Contributions to the physiology and pathology of the breast and its lymphatic glands / by Charles Creighton. With illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    sion ; tlie new growth depends upon proliferation, budding, &c. On the other hand, the atypical element or the element of heterology, in Virchow's theory, is explained by deriving the quasi-epithelium of the new growth from the connective-tissue cells. But the heterology of the tumour formation in a secreting organ is sufficiently explained according to an argument that I have already stated. The pathological activity of the breast is not merely in the way of structural growth ; the functional factor is inseparably associated with the structural. The cellular pro- ducts of the gland, whether under normal or morbid circum- stances, are in the nature of things metaplastic ; and if the cellular products of the gland, or the waste cells of the secretion, aggregate to form a tumour, that tumour is in the nature of things hetero- logous. Returning from this digression to the illustration of morbid physiological action in the mamma of the bitch, and taking the phenomena in their physiological order, we come next to a certain class of pathological processes that play a far greater part in the actual formation of new growths than the simple but striking waste production of the pigmented sort which was last described. These also have their type in a certain phase of the normal activity of the breast. They correspond to a more advanced stage of evolution, or, absolutely, to a higher degree of functional excitation. It is necessary, however, to refer at this point to an elementary fact or law of tumour-for- mation in the breast, which underlies all the varieties of the process. In nearly all the cases of mammary tumour-disease in the bitch, the fringes of gland tissue round the tumour, or the glands generally, where the whole of them could be examined, were found to be either in the extreme involuted condition or to show only the first removes from the resting state. The most probable inference from that fact is that the gland became subject to the morbid influence while its structure was upfolded and its function quiescent. The particular portions of the chain of glands where circumscribed tumours or more diffused enlarge- ments are found, are those parts of the organ in which the morbid excitation has begun earlier, or has advanced more rapidly, or has in general met with more favourable conditions.