Volume 1

The Internal secretions and the principles of medicine / by Charles E. de M. Sajous.

  • Charles E. de M. Sajous
Date:
1903-1907
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The Internal secretions and the principles of medicine / by Charles E. de M. Sajous. 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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    or another, relatively impaired, may become the seat of this malignant growth, or rather of a local accumulation of the ab- errant or worn-out cells which enter into its formation. The great vascularity of these growths suggests an effort of Xature to cause their elimination, but mitotic proliferation is alone in- duced, the blood being deficient in the four constituents which should insure destruction of the morbid cellular elements. Apart from the marked vascularization peculiar to sar- coma, the same pathological process obtains, it seems to us, in cancer, although here we are dealing with a localized accumu- lation, retention, and proliferation of epithelial cells. Their multiplication in situ occurs (as in sarcoma) partly in virtue of the fact that they cannot fully utilize the assimilated material in the performance of [their] specific functions (Adami^^®) and partly because the potential energy of their nuclei becomes con- verted into sufficient heat-energy (with what oxidizing sub- stance reaches them) to induce proliferative activity. Eitter found the nuclear chromatin to be precisely that of normal tissue and the cellular karyokinesis to differ in no way from that observed in the normal physiological process. Adrenal insufficiency also accounts for the complications ■witnessed. As the accumulated elements degenerate, toxic products of decomposition enter the blood and, by lowering the functional activity of the anterior pituitary body, finally bring on the cachectic stage. The foci of retained cellular elements becomes also more numerous: i.e., metastasis occurs in one or more regions. That the adrenal system is primarily at fault is also suggested by the predilection of the aged to malignant growths, the recognized influence of general debility, local- ized malnutrition as a result of trauma, cicatrices, etc., and by the fact that the only internal remedies that have proven of any value whatever are powerful adrenal stimulants: erysipelas toxins (Fehleisen), en-sipelas and bacillus prodigiosus toxin?. (Coley), thyroid extract (Borland), lysol and iodine (Behle- Luckau), sodium cacodylate (Benoit), and the better known ar- senic, quinine, etc. Owing to the adrenal stimulation induced, the four con- » J. George Adami: British Medical Journal, March 16,1901. i^Ritter: Deutsche med. Wochenschrift, June, 1901.