Observations on the history, pathology, and treatment of cancerous diseases / by Oliver Pemberton.

Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the history, pathology, and treatment of cancerous diseases / by Oliver Pemberton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    Its growth at first was slow, but very rapid of late. The lump in groin made its appearance within two or three months. No other morbid appearance in any other part of the body. No member of family known to be affected with cancer. An operation was proposed simply to get rid of the offensiveness, pain, and bleeding, most trying to the patient and her friends. The whole tumour, the black spots, and all the enlarged glands in the groin, were removed. Two or three small black specks, scattered deep in the wound, were also dis- sected out, leaving the cut surface apparently clear throughout. The whole of the parts removed were melanotic. The wound healed, without a single drawback, in four or five weeks; and she was enabled to be up, to walk about, and to drive out. After a time came nausea and vomiting after meals, with occasional rambling. In August, one or two small black spots appeared in neighbourhood of cicatrix. In September, there was great prostration; the rambling and vomiting continued, but she was free from pain. Towards the latter end of this month she became insensible, and remained so for about three weeks, passing everything under her; at the end of which period she gradually recovered her senses. Vomiting was present at intervals for several days. She went on thus with tolerable appetite, and not an ache or pain, until the middle of December, when she died suddenly. The black spots in the neighbour!)ood of the cicatrix were the size of beans. There was no examination after death.” Duration : «, from first appearance to operation, “ eight months; /3, from operation until death, “ six months.” Case 23. A man, astat 36, an engineer, under the care of Mr. Fergusson, in King’s College Hospital, 20th December, 1856. The primary disease was a small fungous growth, of a black colour, on great toe of right foot. Removal: soon after operation, a small black spot, the size of a pin’s head, formed between the first and second toes. Two years afterwards a swelling formed in right groin, below Poupart’s ligament; and eighteen months after that a second one appeared above. These were excised five years after the first operation. The patient subsequently went out quite well.—Lancet; March 21st, 1857; p. 290. Duration : «, from first appearance to operation, not stated; (3, from operation to reappearance, not specified; y, from first appearance of melanosis after first operation to the second, “ four years.” Case 24. A man, cetat 65, under the care of Mr. Moore, in the Middlesex Hospital, May, 1855. Black fungoid growth, situated at the I’ight edge of the sphincter ani, in an ulcerated condition, bleeding freely. The disease did not extend far into the bowel. May 11th. Excision of the growth, together with a large portion of the external sphincter. He recovered, with perfect controul over the bowel; and remained tolerably well for nearly a year, when the disease n