APPENDIX
B
PICK: IN THE
“DISCUSSION ZU DEN VORTRAGEN UBER DIE AETIOLOGIE DES CARCINOMS.”
IN “BERLINE
KLIN. WOCHENSCHRIFT,”
1905, NO 13. ABSTRACT OF THE REMARKS CONTRIBUTED BY THE PATHOLOGIST DR. L. PICK TO THE DISCUSSION ON THE ETIOLOGY OF CANCER,
IN BERLIN, MARCH 15, 1905.
DR. PICK
said the discussion which they were that day experiencing on this subject was,
indeed, only a link in an almost endless chain of similar discussions and works
in all civilized countries, and the question arose of itself, in what the great
difficulties in the way of a solution of the problem consisted. Was it possible
for us, with our present methods, to solve it at all? The certain decision
whether malignant disease were due to a parasite or not was in our present
position (1905) impossible. We were compelled to found our views on the
etiology of cancer on morphological grounds, and in his contribution to the
discussion Pick placed the question in this form : Was a parasite etiology of
the cell-growth of cancer really necessary ? He then referred to the cancerous
epithelioma of the chorionic villi (trophoblast), malignant chorioepithelioma.
This was a form of epithelial growth, which took its origin from the epithelial
covering of the chorionic villi, or from chorionic cells in migration, and
occasionally was so malignant that hardly an organ of the body was protected
from destruction, or the formation of metastases in it. It was a very
remarkable, but quite certain, fact that the ordinary chorionic epithelium in
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