A course of lectures on tumors given under the aupices of the Cancer Commission of Harvard University.

  • Harvard University. Cancer Commission.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A course of lectures on tumors given under the aupices of the Cancer Commission of Harvard University. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    The Bearings of the Experimental Investigation of Tumors on the Tumor Problem in General.* BY E. E. TYZZER, M.D., BOSTON, MASS., Assistant Professor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School. The activity at present shown in the investigation of tumors is amply justified by the importance of this problem to every civilized people. In the case of the infectious diseases there is always the possibility of the development of a considerable degree of racial immunity through the survival of the more resistant individuals. This is shown by the fact that when certain of the infectious diseases are conveyed for the first time to isolated tribes, the latter succumb in far greater numbers than is usual in races accustomed to these diseases. The destruction of certain individuals by malignant tumors, how- ever, fails to produce racial exemption, since such tumors most frequently occur after the reproductive period is past. The statement of Bashford,^ that in the deaths of males above thirty-five years of age one in eleven dies of cancer, while in the deaths of females of similar age the ratio is one to eight, indi- cates the frequency of malignant disease. The elucidation of the etiology, the early recognition and the cure of tumors constitute the more important goals toward which tumor investigation is directed. The etiology of tumors, for a long time the stumbling block of pathologists, has been a subject for philosophical quite as much as for scientific consideration. A great variety of methods have, however, been applied to its investigation. The pathological anatomist has made clear the nature of tumors, — that they consist of tissues more or less atypical in structure, but similar to the tissues of the species in which they occur, —that in general they possess powers of unlimited growth, — and that they serve no useful purpose in the organism, but often grow at the latter's expense. Like * A lecture under the auspices of the Cancer Commission of Harvard University. 1 Third scientific report of the Imperial Research Fund, 1908.