The problems of cancer / by Ernest Bashford.

  • Bashford, E. F. (Ernest Francis), 1873-
Date:
[1903?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The problems of cancer / by Ernest Bashford. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Reprinted from British Medical Journal, July 18th, 1903. THE PROBLEMS OF CANCER. By E. F. BASHFORD, M.D. General Superintendent Cancer Research Fund. I.— The Extent of the Field which has been Investigated in Regard to Cancer and its Relation to the Pessimistic Views Entertained in Regard to the Ultimate Results of the Investigation of Cancer. Our knowledge of malignant new growths is all but limited to a recognition of the facts which present themselves for investigation in pathological laboratories, obtaining their material from the post-mortem or operating theatres of hospitals in the most civilized portions of the world. The material thus obtained has been extensively investigated, from the purely histological standpoint, to a great extent also in co-relation with clinical observations. It is, perhaps, generally conceded that further advances in these directions will not be easy of attainment, and that by these paths alone the problems of cancer will not be solved. With the materials occurring in hospitals other lines of inquiry, especially biological, bio-chemical, the conditions of growth of cancerous tissue as distinct from the problem of the genesis of malignant new growths, have been hardly touched upon, except in a purely speculative fashion, and in the latter direction to a degree out of all proportion to the meagreness of the facts accumulated. Speculation in regard to the nature and genesis of malignant new orowths has roamed over the full field of biological science and the actual facts constituting our definite knowledge of cancer have been drawn from what by comparison is a singularly limited field, namely, that accessible to the microscopical and other histological methods of the pathological anatomist, for clinical observations have hardly