On the nature and development of cystic tumours of the breast / by James F. Goodhart.

  • Goodhart, James Frederic, 1845-1916.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the nature and development of cystic tumours of the breast / by James F. Goodhart. 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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    and-such a growth is a cancer^ while many most harmless-looking tumours rapidly reeur. I am inelined to say for myself, that an answer to the question of recurrence is much more surely indicated by naked-eye appearances and experienee, than by any histological inquiry. Lastly, as to the light which these observations throw upon gland development, it may be remembered that 1 expressed a doubt whether these new formations were ever produced by the involution of a simple tube, while the formation of papillae inside eavities is very general in what appear to be attempts at gland growth in many regions of the body. This uniformity of aetion in different parts ean- not, I think, be a mere result of chanee. Again, it seems very im- probable that there should exist one developmental law for an early period of life, and another for adult age or senility, while no one, I suppose, now holds that new growths are omnipotent in their free- dom from all law. Whatever, then, the name by which we char- aeterize that force whieh ends in tuinour, most will probably be ready to admit that it cannot be other than that same force which was impressed upon the one eell at its first beginning, and which sent it on its road of evolution ; and we may, upon this, not unreasonably ground the assumption that the developmental processes gone through in the formation of glands in intra-uterine life, will be very closely imitated in extra-uterine formations; in other words, the clue to the nature of these pathological structures must be looked for in the field of normal embryology; and if so, then, by providing speci- mens easy of access, both by their numbers and size, morbid anatomy will, in its turn, react upon the latter, and facilitate a study at pre- sent surrounded by almost insuperable difficulties. This line of inquiry has indeed already made much progress through the able researches of Muller, Billroth, and others. PRINTED By OLIVER AND BOYD, EDXNUUKGFI.