Practical observations on cancer / by the late John Howard.
- Howard, John, Fellow of the College of Surgeons
- Date:
- 1811
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Practical observations on cancer / by the late John Howard. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
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![i firmed by subsequent experience. I have endea- voured in former publications and in the present instance, to show the probable connexion which cancer has with scrofula, lepra, elephantiasis, and hereditary diseases of the skin; and I shall here- after bring some additional proofs that this cruel disease runs in many families, from parents to their offspring. I have entered rather diffusely into the consideration of these causes, thinking it may lead to a more thorough knowledge of the disease:—how far I may have done it properly or not, it must be left to others to say. These intri- cate, but, to me, important questions may how- ever serve as inquirenda, for the sagacity of pro* fessional men. Fungous Excrescences.']—The sides or walls of every diseased gland, whether large or small, are formed by the condensation of cellular membrane : —this makes its external coat, and, in a natural state of the body, confines and limits the size of the gland. Whenever a ripe cancer, if I may use the epithet, can force its way through this coat and the external coverings, by its growth, volume, and state within, then the part not only ulcerates, but has a disposition to throw out a fungus, which * See an Address to the Governors of the Middlesex Hospital, at the first opening of Mr. Whitbread's Cancer-ward.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21458571_0048.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
