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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    Peyrille,* Dupuytren, Valentin, Vogel, and Billroth experimented with tumor juices, and failed to reproduce a tumor by the injection of these juices into the lower animals. On the contrary, Lebert and Weys,f Langenbeck,J Eiselt,§ C. O. Weber,|| Fol- lin and Lebert,claim to have succeeded in producing cancerous nodes in different organs of animals by injecting cancer juice into their circulation. To ascertain whether there is such a spe- cific virus in the juices, I undertook a series of twelve experiments, making injections of tumor juices into different parts of the animals. The animals were kept under observation for one year, and careful autopsies revealed no trace or effect of the injected juices. The juices were taken from hard and soft cancers, and also from sarcomas. All the experiments were negative, the juices in- jected proving generally an irritant, which gave rise to an inflammatory process fol- lowed by suppuration. It must be borne in mind that the juices before being injected were all examined, and any particles were carefully excluded. A microscopical examination of the juices showed the following: numerous compound granule-cells, clusters of fatty degenerated epithelial cells, blood, and a large amount of molecular debris, all suspended in a trans- parent, almost colorless liquid. These experiments, although by no means conclusive, tend to show that there is no soluble virus, or, in other words, no specific soluble virus, in the juices capable of pro- ducing tumors, and that the infectious properties, if any exist, must be sought for in other ingredients of the tumor. In conclusion, I might add that by infer- ence from the results of my experiments and the numerous experiments of others, I am forced to agree with Formad,** who believes that those experimenters who succeeded in producing tumors by inoculation with tumor juices dealt with juices that contained tumor particles composed of living cells; in which case the tumor was not a result of infection, but of transplantation. * Quoted after Zahn, Congr&s International Medical, 1877, Geneva, 1878. + Virchow’s Archiv, xl. pp. 142-532. t Schmidt’s Jahrbiicher, vol xxv., 1870, p. 99. (i Pragcr Viertc-Ij , Bd. 76, 1862, p. 53. j Chirurg. Erfahrungen und Untersuch., Berlin, 1859, P- 259- *|f Traite Pratique des Maladies Cancereuses. Paris, 1851, p. 136. ** Proceedings of Philadelphia Pathological Society, Oct. 27, 1881. Por the literature and a detailed analy- sis of this interesting question, see the ex- haustive monograph, “ The Etiology of Tumors,” by Dr. H. F. Formad {loc. citi), and the discussion thereon, Proceed. Path. Soc., October 27, 1881. CHAPTER III. TRANSPLANTATION OF TUMOR PARTICLES. Are tumors due to specific cell life, dif- fering in principles of growth and develop- ment from that of normal tissues? To answer this question a series of twenty- eight experiments, consisting of the trans- plantation of tumor particles, was per- formed, and only those experiments were taken into consideration in which speci- mens examined microscopically showed no retrograde change. The transplantations of these tumor par- ticles were made at intervals ranging be- tween ten minutes and three hours after the removal of the tumor from the living human being. It was my object to trans- plant the particles while the cells com- posing them still possessed vital properties. Thus, should a particle continue to exist without being absorbed, notwithstanding the change in its environment, it would prove conclusively that the principles of growth therein manifested differed in no wise from those which govern the growth of the epithelial cells composing a skin- graft, or it would show that the mode of development differed in no respect from that of transplanted normal tissue. It will be seen that twenty-eight trans- plantations with tumors were performed : five witli scirrhous cancer, seven with en- cephaloid, four simple epithelioma, four adenoma, one condyloma, seven sarcoma. The transplantations were made in the fol- lowing positions: sixteen times subcutane- ously, three into muscular tissue, one into anterior chamber of eye, two into jugular vein, one into mammary gland. Of all these experiments only two showed positive results; all the rest were negative.ff Of the two positive experiments, I will now give some details (both being lung experi- ments). In the first of these, the embolus, after fifty-five days, was found in the lung, and measurements showed it to have in- creased to about three times its original size. ff The tables of tumor transplantations are here omitted, to save space and large expense.