On cancer of the breast / by Thomas William Nunn.

Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On cancer of the breast / by Thomas William Nunn. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    reassume simpler forms. By accident, or from tlie influence of some unknown causes, these multiplied units, of which, every tissue is composed; are subject to deformities and molecular deterioration. And it seems most natural to regard cancer as an intensification of this abnormal development and retrograde change, and to describe it, wherever found, as a series of deviations from the natural form and composition of the existing tissues. But how is it that all these conditions of cancer, presenting so many diverse appearances, can be shown to be essentially the same ? Simply by histological examination. Deaths and operations give us the opportunity of investigating the minute structure of these tumours in all stages of their growth, and the result is a tolerably exact know- ledge of the nature and disposition of their constituent parts and elements. sections made after due preparation, we find them all to consist of countless multitudes of cells, for the most part having great activity of reproduction and very little developmental power; pushing their way among the ultimate elementary parts of tissues and organs, and there undergoing their abortive changes, or accumulating in groups among the meshes and alveolar spaces formed by the inter- lacing of the fibres and bands of fibres of a more or less per- fectly-formed kind of connective or fibrous tissue. Lymphatic action and the circulation of blood is carried on among these growths by a modified capillary arrangement; and the grouping of cells, stroma, and vessels presents to us simulacra of the organs, or imperfect imita- tions of the tissues among which they are found. In other words, we may describe cancer as the formation of cell-growths amongst the textural elements of a part, such cell-growth being of low vitality and short-lived. This cell-growth, so inherently prone to atrophy, either gives rise to atrophic changes in the textures in which it is generated, or, acting as a stimulant, induces a vascular outgrowth. Accordingly, there occurs either a slow wasting and shrivelling of the parts or a vascular hypertrophy, with great tendency to inflammatory action, which rapidly runs into gangrene—a gangrene which destroys en masse, as well as by the molecule.