First report on the cytological investigation of cancer : 1906 / by J.E.S. Moore and C.E. Walker.

  • Moore, J. E. S.
Date:
[1906]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: First report on the cytological investigation of cancer : 1906 / by J.E.S. Moore and C.E. Walker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Part II. COMPARATIVE CONSIDERATION OF THE CYTOLOGY OF CANCER. 40. In the present state of knowledge it is not clear, from a cytological point of view, that cancer, as a distinct form of tumour, can be morphologically defined. From a cytological aspect, cancer is an abnormal proliferation of the cells originally forming some portion of an animal’s body. Such proliferations, when they are described as cancer, are distinguished from other growths by a number of physiological attributes which it ought, according to existing conceptions, to exhibit. Thus cancer continues to grow and at the same time invades and destroys surrounding tissues. It produces metastases in different parts of the body, and when removed it tends to recur. 41. The definition of what we call cancer is, therefore, constituted by a number of attributes appearing together, and it will be obvious that from the etiological point of view, such a definition is by no means satisfactory. It is clear that growths presenting the above attributes in conjunction might be of the most diverse origin, and etiologically entirely distinct from each other. In practice it is found, moreover, that the attributes which are together regarded as distinctive of cancer, are not always all present, and often not present in the same degree relatively to each other. Some tumours that grow rapidly, invade, destroy, and form metastases, show little tendency to recur. Again, tumours which invade, destroy and recur repeatedly after removal, may not form metastases. Further, tumours which recur and form metastases may be, at least relatively, lacking in invasive and destruc- tive powers. There is, indeed, a general consensus of opinion among surgeons, physicians, and pathologists, that both from the ordinary histological and physiological points of view, it is possible to select tumours that constitute series that pass, almost if not altogether, insensibly from simple hypertrophy to invasion, the formation of metastases,and the most widespread results of destructiveness. 42. It is, moreover, doubtful whether there are any definite microscopical appearances that show that a particular tumour has the full physiological attributes of malignancy. At present it is quite conceivable that there may exist a large class of tumours the members of which are all similar in origin, though exhibiting the attributes of malignancy in different degrees. It is also possible that these attributes may vary in degree from time to time in the same growth. The trend of recent investigations has tended to make it more and more apparent that the problem of cancer is not adequately expressed by the question: “What is Cancer?” but rather by the necessity of ascertaining what has been the precise mode of origin, and cell lineage in particular growths. 43. If we can demonstrate the existence of a class of tumours originating in some particular way from any particular cause, and if these tumours exhibit in individual instances the attributes of malignancy, we shall have solved the problem of the nature of cancer in a particular case, and shall have laid the foundation for the etiology of malignant growths in general. 44. The researches described in the following pages have been conducted with this end in view. When the investigations were begun, the cytology of cancer was practically a blank. It had been shown by Hertwig, Galeotti, von Hansemann, and others, that irregular B