A case of myoma multiplex of the skin / by H. Radcliffe Crocker.

  • Crocker, H. Radcliffe (Henry Radcliffe), 1845-1909.
Date:
[1897?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A case of myoma multiplex of the skin / by H. Radcliffe Crocker. 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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    Case I—Yerneuil, Societe Anatomique, 1858. Verneuil’s case was from the dissecting-room. The cadaver presented innumerable cutaneous tumours. In size they varied from a pin’s-head to a nut. They were seated in the derma, and many could be felt rather than seen. The deepest only involved the deepest part of the corium. To the naked eye they were fibro-plastic, and in some points resembled neuromata. Microscopically they were formed partly of striated muscular fibres like those of the heart, partly of smooth muscular fibres. Some of the tumours had no vessels, whilst others were very rich in them. Nerve-fibres, vestiges of sebaceous glands and entire sweat-glands were also found in the tumours. Case II.—Besnier, Ann. de Dermat., Yol. I., 1880, p. 25, and Vol. VI.. 1885, p. 322. A washerwoman, ait. GO, was admitted into the St. Louis Hospital in December, 1876. The patient had only been cognisant of the cutaneous tumours for three months, but as they gave her no trouble, and she sought relief for lung troubles, her state- ment as to their duration was unreliable. On admission there were observed, on various parts of the trunk and upper limbs, first, springing from the healthy skin, irregularly-arranged, round or irregularly lentil-shaped, very pale red, slightly projecting spots, very like wheals of urticaria papulatum, or closely resembling the earliest papules of dermato-lyinphadenoma, or mycosis fungoides; second, small tumours, of the form and size of a shot, lentil, or pea, the smaller pink, the larger dull red, in colour, disappearing on pressure. The surface was smooth and the epidermis normal. No sensory or subjective symptoms of any kind, except that strong pressure of the larger tumours produced rather sharp pain, this did not occur in the smaller. Their consistence was firm. During a stay of some months in the hospital, about a score of new nodules gradually appeared, and the principal tumours increased in size. In 1878 she was seen again, and it was noticed that the older tumours had increased somewhat in size, and some fresh ones had developed. In 1884 she again came to the hospital, and the tumours had slowly increased in number and size, but the largest was not bigger than an almond; but their characters were unaltered, and while the tumours were sensitive to rubbing and pressure, there were no spontaneous symptoms. There was no return of the tumours removed for examination from the thorax. The tumours were found to consist almost entirely of smooth muscular fibres, in bundles, with a variable direction, and united by connective-tissue bundles. Nerve- trunks were also present, and numerous elastic fibres in a network round the muscular bands. In 1885 she was again admitted to the hospital with emphysema and cancer of both breasts. At her death, shortly afterwards, there were uterine fibromyomata, as well as the double mammary cancer. Case III.—Arnozan and Vaillard, Journal de Medicine de Bordeaux, 1881.—A. female peasant, set. 52, was admitted into the Bordeaux Hospital in August, 1880. The affection had commenced fifteen years previously, with a small red projection on the radial border of the right forearm, and similar tumours developed soon afterwards on the back of the forearm. They were isolated, quite painless at first, but at the end of two or three years they became the seat of very painful pricking, principally after exposure to cold. Their extension was progressive, continuous, but extremely slow. Five years from the commencement, the forearm and the