Elements of surgery: for the use of students : with plates (Volume 2).

  • Dorsey, John Syng, 1783-1818.
Date:
1818
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Elements of surgery: for the use of students : with plates (Volume 2). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    their occurrence to admit of their forming any part of the character of a cancerous tumour. In some cases cysts exist of various forms and sizes, and in different parts of the tumour ; a late writer (Dr. Adams) pronounces these to be living hydatids. When tumours are extirpated exhibiting these appearances, we may rest assured that they would never have been dis- cussed and in all probability would have advanced to the state of true and malignant cancer. We are not however always able to prediet what tu- mours will become so, and what particular tumours may remain unsuspected. Mr. Home with great and com- mendable candour remarks, that so much does the same disease differ in its appearance in different pa- tients, from the almost endless peculiarities of their con- stitutions, by which every part of their bodies must be more or less influenced, that it is not possible in prac- tice to distinguish, in all cases, between cancerous and scrofulous tumours, after they have advanced to a cer- tain stage, and he confesses that he has in many in- stances mistaken the one for the other, and has removed by operation tumours, which at the time had the appear- ance of being cancerous, but which upon examination after their removal were found of a scrofulous nature; and, on the other hand, he has neglected to remove tu- mours, from circumstances making it probable that they were scrofulous, which afterwards became cancerous and destroyed the patient. Although surgeons generally have not confessed their mistakes, yet the immense disparity which appears in the record of their successes establishes the fact that Mr. Home has not been singular in confounding can- cerous with other diseases. Mr. Nooth, for example, declares, that in one hundred and two cases in which he extirpated scirrhus tumours, every patient remained