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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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