Cancer / illustrated by 1000 cases from the registers of the Middlesex Hospital.

  • Nunn, T. W. (Thomas William), 1825-1909.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cancer / illustrated by 1000 cases from the registers of the Middlesex Hospital. 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.

    62/162 (page 50)
    CANCER. trouble, and nursed her infant until it was nine months old. At the date of her visit to me, for which I am in- debted to Dr. Saunders, then of Hinde Street, the nipple was somewhat retracted ; but taking into account her recent confinement and the obscure limits of the tumour, I was led to hope that it might be a simple inflamma- tory swelling of the axillary lobes of the gland. The patient was pale and weak. I consequently ordered her steel and cod-liver oil, and suggested that she should go into the country. I saw her again on June 19 ; the tumour had put on a definite aspect of being cancerous : it had become stony, and the skin over it was ])uckered, and it was more painful than formerly ; she had then ptosis of the left eyelid. I proposed, if the paivfulnesa became excessive, or even increased, that the tumour should be removed, although I considered the case one in which a very temporary relief only could be expected from operation. The patient, however, declined to have any- thing done. She died in October; and Dr. Saunders gave me the following further particulars :— After you last saw Mrs. E she continued to take the cod-liver oil and tinctura ferri, and in a fortnight's time, or thereabouts, became so oppressed with fat that I was obliged to discontinue the oil ; the fat lay in rolls over the abdomen and also over the ribs, and her breathing became oppressed. The patient lost the use of her lower limbs about two months before her death. She had very little pain in the breast, which became hard, rather larger, and fixed; there was no ulceration, but the nipple was slightly excoriated. She had, however, frequently pain down the left side of the neck, extending over the scapula. This pain was sometimes intense, and required for its alleviation the injection of morphia. The ptosis became complete and the left eye everted. The thirst was un- quenchable ; the temperature in the axilla towards the latter part of her illness reached 104°. The patient gradually sank. No post-mortem was made.