Cases of excision of a portion of the lower jaw for the cure of osteosarcoma affecting that bone : with some observations on the pathology of osteosarcomatous tumours / by Philip Crampton.

  • Crampton, Philip, 1777-1858.
Date:
[1827]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cases of excision of a portion of the lower jaw for the cure of osteosarcoma affecting that bone : with some observations on the pathology of osteosarcomatous tumours / by Philip Crampton. 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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    by the exercise of his unequalled musical talents. • Before his death the tumour acquired an almost incredible magnitude, it measured (including the thigh) six feet six inches in circumference. A few hours before his death he vomited several quarts of a brownish colour fluid, and died in the act of vomiting, in consequence of some of the fluid regurgitating into the trachsea, and causing suffo- cation.* The body was carefully examined on the following day by my friend Mr. M‘Namara and myself; all the viscera were perfectly sound. The tumour formed a vast cavity, the walls of which varied in thickness from six to twelve inches; the cavity contained several quarts of a fluid which in colour, odour and consistence, exactly resembled that which had been vomited for some hours before death.t The walls of the tumour consisted of a firm cartilaginous stnic- ture, intermixed with bone, the bone being de- posited in flat plates, on the outer surface and in * In its earlier stages, this case was seen by Sir A. Cooper and Mr. Abernethy in London, and by the Baron Dupuytren in Paris. It was however during the last three years that the tumour acquired such an extraordinary developement when Sir A. Cooper and Mr. Abernethy saw it in the year 1817, (four years previous to the death of the patient), the tumour in- cluding the thigh measured about three feet six inches in cir- cumference. -j- I do not venture to offer an explanation of this extraor- dinary fact; it is plainly referable however to the obscure laws of Metastisis, which must be admitted to exist, although they do not (perhaps) in the present state of our knowledge admit of a satisfactory explanation.