The cancerous affections of the skin : a treatise on epithelioma and rodent ulcer.

  • Thin, George.
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The cancerous affections of the skin : a treatise on epithelioma and rodent ulcer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    led to SO much, difference of opinion as to the origin of the epithelial masses which, form the most character- i'stic elements in cancer of the skin. Although it is possible by careful examination to detect cancerous epithelium growing direct from the pre-existing normal epithelium of the part, yet by far the most luxuriant growth takes place in directions more or less parallel to the surface of the integument, and thus most of the cell-masses which are observed in a vertical section do not appear to be in direct con- tinuity with the normal structures that in the first instance gave origin to the masses from whicb they sprang. In some cases, indeed, it seems very difficult to trace the exact continuity of the normal epithelium. Eound isolated groups of epithelial cells are seen at various depths in the substance of the cutis, sur- rounded by connective tissne, and apparently having no connection with any other epithelium. It was this appearance that gave so much support to the doctrine of Yirchow, that the epithelial elements of cancer are developed from connective-tissue cells. When small clusters of two or three epithelial ceUs were seen deeply situated in the cutis, exactly in the position in which the stellate appearances are found, which were long considered to be the cells of connective tissue, it was very natural to suppose that they took their origin in some diseased condition of the so-called plasma- cells. This doctrine received a damaging blow from two distinct lines of investigation. The discoveries of Schweigger-Seidel, Eanvier, and Boll, verified by other trustAVorthy histologists, showed that the con- nective-tissue corpuscle of Yirchow is nothing but a