The Bradshaw lecture on the pathology of cancer, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 1884 / by W.S. Savory. Savory.

  • Savory, W. S. (William Scovell)
Date:
[1884?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Bradshaw lecture on the pathology of cancer, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 1884 / by W.S. Savory. Savory. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the significance of the expression, at least in its rela¬ tion to cancer, would be lost. Neither does it appear to me that the view is supported by the manner in which cancer often proves to be hereditary. Although the fact of the occasional hereditary trans¬ mission of tumours is common to all of them, it has been pointed out that there is a difference in the manner of transmission of tumours which are called local, and of cancers; that, when a local or innocent tumour is transmitted, it reappears in the same tissue, if not in the same place, in the offspring ; whereas no such limitation is observed in cancer. But the difference in this respect seems to me to be more apparent than real, and such as it is, I think may be explained by the nature of the cancer-substance, of which I shall speak presently. When innocent tumours are transmitted, they often appear in the offspring in widely different parts, although, for obvious reasons, somewhere in the same tissue; and cancers, when transmitted, have a strong tendency to re¬ appear in the same part ; perhaps, in half the instances, in the breast. The difference, after all, appears to be one only of degree, and, if the current view of the relation of cancer to epithelium, and of sarcoma to connective tissue, be correct, of a degree perhaps not very signifi¬ cant. For it may be said that no kind of tumour which is hereditary is limited to a particular place, and every kind of tumour which is hereditary is limited to a particular tissue. Then its recurrence after removal and its dissemination —the features which place it in such striking contrast to the tumours called innocent—in a word, the signs that are generally held to indicate an affection of the system—cannot be shown, I think, to be the usual attri¬ bute of cancer in the earlier stages of its history. If,
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