CHAPTER
IV
THE
CANCER PROBLEM*
IN the following simple story the
correctness will be assumed of all the conclusions as to the etiology and
nature of cancer which were advanced in, for example, the abstract of my
lecture on the “Problems of Cancer,” published in the Lancet of October
29, 1904. The appended classification of neoplasms—an extension and
inclusion of the “embryomata” of Wilms—may serve to make clear here what a
malignant tumour is defined to be,
1. Embryomata (benign neoplasms). —
Pathological manifestations of some greater or less portion of an embryo. They
are composed of real tissues—that is, normal or somatic
(“ embryonic “) cells or tissues. At its
basis each is a greater or less portion of a twin, triplet, quadruplet, etc.,
identical with the individual containing it. They are not endowed with
indefinite powers of growth, and they nourish themselves like other normal
tissues.
2. Amphimyxornata (malignant
neoplasms).—Combinations of embryomata and trophoblastomata. Pathological
manifestations or attempts to reproduce the whole life-cycle, including
trophoblast and embryo.
* The Lancet, February 4, 1905. An abstract, with
sundry subsequent alterations and additions, of a paper read before the
Edinburgh Pathological Club on December, 13, 1904. See also Appendix A,
“The Liverpool Lecture.”
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