Carcinoma is a parasitic disease : being the Bradshaw lecture delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons of England / by Henry T. Butlin.

  • Butlin, Henry Trentham, Sir, 1845-1912.
Date:
1905
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Carcinoma is a parasitic disease : being the Bradshaw lecture delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons of England / by Henry T. Butlin. 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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    stituents precisely similar to those of which the simplest protozoa are composed. The protoplasm of the cell often con- tains granules, and is frequently vacuolated. It generally exhibits the same general characters in the same carcinoma, but its shape and size are affected by its surroundings and by the conditions under which its life is passed. Such is its anatomy ; it is the anatomy of the simplest forms of animal life. Of its physiology we know less, for it has not yet 'been possible to study it outside the body of the host. Examined on a warm stage, it is said to exhibit amoeboid movement, and to change its shape. The prickle cells which we frequently meet with In squamous-celled carcinoma remind us of the pseudopodial processes of certain of the protozoa. We may assume that It ingests, digests, and excretes, and that many of the appearances which the cells present on section are due Fig. 9.—Nucleus of calcituba. Fig. 10.—Cells of Plasmodium malariae. Fig. 11.—Colpoda steinii cells. (All from Calkins, The Protozoa, 1901, Figs. 14, 8, and 17.) to these phenomena. There can be no doubt that it may become surrounded by a membrane, that the membrane may become horny, and that the cell is liable to dropsical and degenerative changes. Fig. 12.—Direct division of Fig. 13.—Endogenous multiplication cell of carcinoma of of a cell from carcinoma of the the breast. breast. (Figs. 6 and 25 of Fabre-Domergue.) Although we have not been able to follow all the phases of reproduction in the carcinoma cell, there is evidence that this takes place by mitosis and by amitosis, and the conjugation of nuclei has been observed not only in sections taken from carcinoma of the lower animals, but in carcinoma from the human subject. Whether this conjugation is concerned with the reproduction of the cells, or whether it is a means by