On the origin of cancer / by Alexander Ogston.

  • Ogston, Alexander, 1844-1929.
Date:
[1873]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the origin of cancer / by Alexander Ogston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    V ERtrZ- & <rv >n-o ON THE ORIGIN OF CANCER. Bv ALEXANDER OGSTON, M.D., Aberdeen. Reprinted from the Edinburgh Medical Journal for April 1873. Case.—On the 3d December 1872, at the request of her medical attendant, I visited Mrs B., aged fifty-four, who complained of a painful nodule in her right cheek. Having for a few years been in impaired health, she had in addition, for eleven months previous, suffered considerable annoyance from the sharp edge of a decaying tooth, the right middle molar in her lower jaw. To the irritation produced by this tooth she attributes the origin, in May of the above year, of the small painful tumour in the right cheek. The tumour had been gradually increasing in size, and the stinging paroxysmal pain in it had also increased to such an extent as seriously to disquiet her and interfere with her general health. Upon examination, a tumour of about the size of a large pea was perceptible in the substance of the right cheek, opposite the situa¬ tion in the lower jaw from which the offending tooth had been removed, and below the aperture of Stenon’s duct. The tumour was not sharply circumscribed to the touch, and on being grasped in mass between the fingers its bulk seemed larger than as above described, but when carefully examined between the finger placed in the mouth and the thumb externally, it was apparent that there was a limited zone of indurated tissue immediately surrounding the nucleus of the growth, which latter was of firmer consistence and of the size indicated above, from one-fourth to five-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, rounded in form, painful when much handled, and yet not very tender on compression. Its situation seemed to be Explanation of the Plate. Section of Cancer of the Cheek tinted with Carmine, X 50 diameters. a. Normal hairs. a'. Brittle hairs from hyperplastic follicles. b. Normal epidermis, skin, and hair- follicles. c. Hyperplastic Malpighian layer of epidermis. d, d. Hyperplastic hair-follicles. e. Sections of vessels. /. Adipose tissue. f'. Adipose tissue infiltrated with cancer. g. Cancerous tumour. h) h. Muscle.