Certain biological aspects in the general pathology of malignant new growths / by J.A. Murray.

  • Murray, J.A.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Certain biological aspects in the general pathology of malignant new growths / by J.A. Murray. 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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    Section D.—Cambridge, 1904.] 4\3h6:; New M M.B. From time to time biologists have turned their attention to some of the problems which cancer presents, but their contributions to the subject have not been accepted as final. The limited scope of the individual investigotors may well be the principal reason for this want of correlation between the difierent lines of work. The investigations of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund have been directed by the conviction that it is essential, if progress is to be made, that the facts from widely distinct fields of inquiry should be focussed on the essentials of the problem, and conclusions apparently warranted by one set of observations must be controlled by all the others. The following different lines of inquiry seem to be of importance at present; 1. Pathological-anatomical, including gross anatomy, as well as histological and cytological investigations. 2. Zoological distribution, including ethnological distribution. 3. Statistical investigations—age distribution in correlation with zoological distribution.' 4. E-tperimental investigations. Transmissibility. Powers of growth of normal and malignant tissue. Malignant new growths, in common with benign, increase their characteristic parenchyma entirely from their own resources. As soon as a malignant new ^owth is recognisable as such, it is marked ofi' anatomically and physiologically from its surroundings. This phenomenon, now well established, is sufiiciently remarkable when it is borne in mind that, histologically, the independent tissue may be indistin^ishable from that among which it takes it^ origin. To a recognition of this fact is due the acceptance accorded to Cohnheim’s hypothesis and all its variants. These variants were introduced because of the necessity that was felt to account for the close dependence of the type of growth on the characters of the surrounding tissue, especially when the latter presents well- marked differences at different periods (Thiersch, Ribbert). They are all attempts to account for the behaviour of malignant new growths as independent new organisms, and, whatever acceptance we may accord to the various hypotheses, the fact they seek to explain is incontrovertible. In discussing the e.xperimental investigations some reasons for considering these hypotheses as inadequate will be referred to. The cells of malignant new growths increase in number by division. Amitosis certainly occurs, but mitotic division is by far the commoner, especially in fully developed tumours. Multipolar mitoses are common, but not universal. Tbe active growth and extension of the malignant tissue, as manifested at the growing *^'n malignant new growths we have so far examined, is eflVcted by cell-divisions, which, so far as they are mitotic, conform to the ordinary type met with in early development. Apart from multipolar divisions, the number of chromosomes entering the equatorial plate is found constant in each species, and they undergo the ordinary longitudinal splitting. Passing from the growing margin towards the older parts of the growth two sets of changes occur. iMany 1 characteristic histological changes peculiar to the tissue among ^ 'tK fu™our has arisen, while others prepare for further mitosis. In some o hese the resulting mitosis is characterised by the presence of bivalent d 8