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.

    85/162 (page 71)
    In the variety with broad-based cysts, the secondary cysts (or endogenous cysts of the second order) commonly contain tertiary cysts (or endogenous cysts of the third order) like themselves, and growing from their walls as they grow from the walls of the primary cyst. In the intermediate variety, also, the secondary cysts usually contain tertiary cysts like themselves. In the peduncu- lated variety the clusters of cysts may grow from the inner surface of the primary cyst [as in 2621], but more frequently they grow from the interior of secondary cysts. Moreover, among the specimens of each of these varieties, various appear- ances are produced by the diflFerent sizes of the endogenous cysts; by their being more or less crowded, or by their more or less completely filling the cavities of those in which they grow; by their mutual pressure, and consequent change of form or texture; and by the union of their walls when they are crowded to- gether [as in 165 b]. Other peculiarities arise from the varieties of the contents of the cysts: the contents, too, besides their original differences, may be modified by rupture or by inflammation of the cyst-walls; and by the latter event, the cyst-walls may also themselves be altered by lymph being deposited and organised upon them [as in 165 a, b]. The forms and sizes of the pedunculated cysts are extremely various, and transitional forms may be traced from groups of the most slender of them to groups of filaments, or of narrow, pedunculated, solid growths, by which [as No. 170 shows] a connexion is established between this and the next species of cysts—the cysts which produce solid growths from their walls, and through which, as Dr. Hodgkin has shown, there is a direct transition to certain forms of solid tumours. 165 A. Portions of one of the divisions of a large raultilocular compound cyst from an ovary. Attached to the inner wall of the chief or parent cyst, by narrow bases or by pedicles, are numerous thin-walled cysts containing a pellucid reddish or yellow fluid. Within these cysts of the second order, some of which are laid open, there are numerous other cysts of a third order, smaller, more delicate, but similarly attached to the walls of their parent-cysts, and filled by similar fluid. The cysts of the third order nearly fill the cavities of those of the second order: some of them, closely pressed together, have lost their round shape, and have acquired, by mutual compression, flattened sides: their walls are all pellucid and vascular. The cysts of the second order did not fill that of the first order; but some of them are close-set, and mutually compressed.