88 THE ENZYME TREATMENT
OF CANCER
of
the one sort of tissue may be actually destroyed, or ‘suffocated.’ In this way
at one time a true embryoma may be found in the curious form of an isolated
tooth, at another time, perhaps, as a sort of glioma, or as an ovarian true
thyroid-struma, or, again, as a chorio-epithelioma. with metastases.”
In
other respects Pick’s communication is of great interest. His researches have
established for, at any rate some, ovarial teratomata, as Schlagenhaufer’s* had
already done for the like tumours of the testis, the occurrence of a chorion
or trophoblast—in the instance recorded in a more or less degenerate condition.
Their finds throw a considerable amount of welcome light upon the (according to
Wilms**) frequently malignant character of the testicular embryomata, and the
cases—some nine in 1902, to which Pick’s instance furnished a tenth—of
the occurrence of cancer in connection with an ovarian embryoma. As in the
ordinary chorio-epithelioma of gestation, in embryomata of ovary and testis,
carcinomatous growth, when present, is now (1903) recognizable as having
arisen from the asexual generation (chorion or trophoblast). These words were
actually read to a large audience, as occurring in a paper on “The Embryology
of Tumours,” by me, on February i6, 1903, before the Royal Society,
Edinburgh. This was the last occasion on which I communicated anything of my
researches to this learned society. Practically the whole of that paper is
given in this book as it was originally written. Publication of it was refused
by the Royal Society, Edinburgh. Shortly afterwards I made a full abstract of
it in English,
* Schlagenhaufer, Fr.:
“Uber das Vorkommen chorio-epithelioma und traubenartiger Wucherungen in
Teratomen,” in Wiener klin. Wochenschr., 1902, Nos. 22-23.
** Wilms, M. : “Die Mischgeschwülste,”
1902, iii., p. 242.