Cancer and its complications / by Charles Egerton Jenkins.

  • Jennings, Charles Egerton.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cancer and its complications / by Charles Egerton Jenkins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the disease, is the only means by which immunity from recurrence may be relied upon. And there are few cases exceptional to this rule. When epithelioma arises from cutaneous ulcers of long standing, a syphilitic origin of these ulcers may often be ascertained, especially if they be situated upon the lower extremity. Epithelioma, in most cases where it arises from tertiary syphilitic ulcers, may be attributable to a neglect in the treatment of the syphilitic disease by pre- parations of mercury and iodide of potassium. Naturally, the transition stages of a syphilitic into an epitheliomatous ulcer are gradual, and in practice cases will be met with in the transition stage which correspond neither with the type of a syphilitic nor cancerous ulcer as described upon paper. In any case where the cancerous ulceration has become palpable by its typical physical signs, the practitioner must not omit to treat the constitu- tional syphilis present in the patient by medicaments, whilst he also treats the cancerous ulcer from a local and surgical standpoint. The principles of treatment of cancerous disease arising out of syphilitic lesions, do not vary from those cases where this complication is absent. Scar-tissue, from whatever cause arising, is prone to become the seat of cancer—especially when the cicatrix has resulted from a burn. In Cashmir, where the natives are wont to burn them- selves by sitting over hot braziers, epithelioma arising in the resulting cicatricial tissue is very common. In this country, the cases of cancer arising in the scar- tissue which results from burns usually present well- recognized features. In the first place, the disease developes out of scar-tissue of long standing, the patient often being past middle age, and the accident producing the burn having occurred in childhood. Secondly, the disease commences as an ulceration of the scar-tissue, in some part where the cicatrix is subjected to the greatest tension, especially in any part situated