A monograph on diseases of the breast : their pathology and treatment, with special reference to cancer.

  • Williams, W. Roger (William Roger)
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A monograph on diseases of the breast : their pathology and treatment, with special reference to cancer. 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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    tumours form ? we must be able to solve the problem of normal growth and development, and to answer the question, why or how it is that these continue up to a certain point and then suddenly cease ? Another circumstance that has tended to weaken Virchow's authority is the large measure of success accorded to a modifi- cation of the cellular theory, propounded by Cohnheim,^° accord- ing to which the only cells of the body capable of originating neoplasms are those contained within detached fragments of the various organs, &c., sequestrated during embryonic life. That a considerable proportion of malignant and non-malignant mammary tumours actually do arise in connection with such belated sequestrations I have elsewhere demonstrated,^^ but it seems to me in the highest degree improbable that these are the only cells capable of originating such growths. On the contrary, as I have elsewhere pointed out,^^ there are good reasons for believing that neoplasms may arise wherever undifferentiated cells are present, and that they are most prone to originate where such cells most abound. But what more than any other recent occurrence has under- mined the authority of the cellular neoplastic pathology, is the widespread belief that neoplasms will eventually turn out to be of microbic origm. In short, it is now evident, that out of the confusion of a transition period, but two conceptions as to the origin of neoplasms have emerged; the one based on the cell theory, and the other on the germ theory, and henceforth the struggle must be between these two. § 11. The Present Controversy. Briefly stated, the question now is—do cancers and other neoplasms arise, as John Hunter and Johannes Miiller main- tained, through a modification of the formative process ; or, are ' Lectures on General Pathology, Syd. Socy. TransL, vol ii., 1889, p 746 Ch. iv., § 5. ^^ Annals of Surgery, Oct., 1891. The Initial Seats of Neoplasms and their Relative Frequency. See also Ch. vii.