The origin of cancer : considered with reference to the treatment of the disease / by Campbell de Morgan.

  • De Morgan, Campbell Greig, 1811-1876.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The origin of cancer : considered with reference to the treatment of the disease / by Campbell de Morgan. 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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    scirrhus of the skin is extremely rare—that here we have it developed in a number of separate nodules around an original gland-tumour, I imagine that no would be disposed to deny that these outgrowths were from germs thrown off from that original tumour. Another view has been put forward of the mode in which dissemination causes the secondary growth of cancer. Dr. Charlton Bastian, in his able intro- ductory Lecture at Univ. Coll. Hosp.,* while he appears to admit that cancer and other malignant growths may in some persons be caused by local irritation without the aid of any ascertained predis- position, advances an opinion at variance with that generally entertained as to their mode of propagation, but which I think is not borne out by our present knowledge of the conditions of growth generally. The main point is contained in the following passage, which I quote at length:— “ Is there anything specific in the mode of growth of these products (cancer and t ubercle) and in their subsequent distribution within the body of the affected person ? Just as an erysipelatous inflam- mation spreads by gradually inducing a similar mor- bid action in adjacent parts, so does a cancer or a mass of tubercle grow by a slower extension of the morbid modes of growth. * We have no more to do with a kind of implanted something increasing by a multiplicative reproduction in the one case than in the other. In both alike there are deviations from the ordinary modes of growth, which gradually ex- # “British Medical Journal,” Oct. 7, 1871.