Volume 1

Descriptive catalogue of the pathological specimens contained in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

  • Royal College of Surgeons of England. Museum.
Date:
1846-9
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Descriptive catalogue of the pathological specimens contained in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    when the stump had completely liealed, the patient died with acute pneumonia. There was no external appearance of the disease having recurred. Presented hy Thomas Salt, Esq. Several specimens of medullary tumours, already described or referred to in preceding sections, present small effusions of blood in their substance; and therefore differ only in degree from the specimens of this variety. Such are 255, 265, 277, 844, 848, &c. Growths bearing analogy to these, in being the sources of profuse haemorrhage, as well as in some similarity of structure, are Nos. 840-1, 302 a, 2005, 2006. /. The Melanotic variety of the Medullary Tumour or Soft Cancer. [Melanoma; Melanosis ; True Melanosis.] All the specimens of melanotic disease in the Museum appear to be examples, either of tumours which, in addition to the general characters of medullary disease, present more or less of blackness from the deposit of colouring matter, like black pigment, in their substance; or of deposits of black colouring matter in the organs of persons in whom such tumours existed. The specimens in the following group are arranged according to the degrees in which the medullary substance which forms the basis of the tumour is blackened by the melanotic matter; so that they show several stages of transition from the pale nearly colourless tumour, through such as are, in deepening shades, mottled with grey, brown, or black, to those in which an intense blackness pervades the whole mass. 282. Sections of a tumour removed from behind the angle of a jaw. It is of an oval shape, smooth on its outer surface, and invested by a thin but dense and tough capsule. It measures nearly three inches in its chief diameter, and its interior is arranged in many lobes. Half of it is com- posed of a uniform pale, close-textured, medullary substance. The other half, separated from the preceding by a definite line similar to others by which the tumour is partitioned into lobes, is composed of the same pale substance, mottled, in various and mingling shades of grey and black, by melanotic matter. Hunterian. The following account of the case is published by Sir E. Home in his ' Observations on Cancer.' London, 1805. 8vo. p. 48, Case VIII. :— A gentleman, about thirty-five years of age, had a tumour formed beiiind the angle of the lower jaw, which was considered as an enlarged lymphatic gland. This increased so much in size as to induce him to have it removed. Three years after, a second •1