The pathogenesis of secondary tumors / by Henry Wile.

  • Wile, Henry.
Date:
1882
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The pathogenesis of secondary tumors / by Henry Wile. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    transplantations on inflamed skin were all negative, and out of fifteen transplanta- tions on normal skin two were positive. In one of these positive experiments No- winsky introduced subcutaneously on the back of a dog a fragment of cancer. After fourteen days it reached the size of a pea, and in eight months the size of a wal- nut. At the end of ninth month the dog was killed, and the tumor excised measured three and a half centimetres in diameter. The second experiment was of the same character. After one and a half months the dog died, and in the cicatrix of the wound a nodule the size of a pea was found. Both these tumors retained the structure of the primary growth. Nowinsky draws the conclusion that under favorable conditions pieces of cancer introduced under the skin grow. Klenke* and Goujonf also succeeded in inoculating animals with cancer. Thus the possibility of successful transplantation of morbid growths is experimentally established. CohnheimJ properly remarks that it is not remarkable that living epithelial masses from carcinomata continue to grow after transplantation. The question, however, arises whether these transplanted tumor particles grow by virtue of any specific properties residing in the cell or whether the transplanted cell-masses grow on the principle of the grafts. The latter propo- sition must be the correct one, as the trans- planted particles grew centrally in the form of a node, while not a trace of the tumor structure or any tendency towards it was found in the surrounding tissue. In other words, there was no infection of the surrounding tissues. This was also the case with transplanted normal tissue, as will be shown in the succeeding chapter. It developed in its new and foreign posi- tion just in the same manner as it does in its native seat. This fact is well demon- strated by my two successful tumor trans- plantations, and also by the experiments of Nowinsky, in which the transplanted tumor particles grew in the form of nodes. It is perfectly conclusive to my mind that no specific infection occurs in the so- called secondary malignant growths. They grow, as do normal tissues, from a central point, as in a skin-graft, without trans- formation or infection of the surround- * Haser’s Archiv, 1843, vol. iv. f Etude sur quelques points, etc. Th&se de Paris, 1866. J Cohnheim’s Allgemeine Pathologie, p. 633. ing tissue. Tumors act deleteriously upon the organism by encroaching with their secondary deposit, which are usually of considerable bulk, and tax the nutrition of the economy to the last degree. Thus I have proved that transplantation with living tumor particles succeeds. That the tumor particle not only retains its vital- ity, but also its proliferating power. That it grows and decidedly increases in size. Furthermore, I have demonstrated the ex- act mode of this growth and development, —namely, that the embolus grows in itself by virtue of ordinary cell vitality, and not through the agency of any specific infectious properties. Again, it is evident from my preparations that the cancerous emboli did not make any “specific impression” upon, or implicate the surrounding tissues into, the cancerous growth. Thus the surrounding normal tissue did not furnish any material for the formation of the new growth (except fur- nishing the blood-supply), but played an entirely passive part, being simply pushed aside and displaced by thecancerousgrowth. I will also show farther on that the growth of normal tissue emboli is accomplished in precisely the same manner, and this serves as a confirmatory proof that metastatic malignant tumors develop in exactly the same manner as particles of normal tissue, and consequently develop by virtue of or- dinary cell life, and not by virtue of any specific properties residing in the cells. CHAPTER IV. TRANSPLANTATION OF NORMAL TISSUE. Simultaneously with the transplantation of tumor particles, a series of thirty-eight transplantations with normal tissue was carried on, in order to discover the fate of such transplanted particles, to see whether they would continue to grow, or whether they would be absorbed after a certain time, as is asserted by some distinguished observers. Thus, should the experiments show that these particles of normal tissue continue to grow and develop in a manner similar to transplanted tumor particles, it would throw light upon the question whether tumors grow by virtue of specific properties residing in the cells, or whether they grow by virtue of ordinary cell life. From the table given on the follow- ing two pages it will be seen that thirty-