Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Outlines of human pathology / by Herbert Mayo. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![The patient was a Ross-shire farmer, aetat. sixty-eight. A month after suffering rheumatism of the shoulder, he fell and bruised the part: some swelHng ensued, which never disappeared, but in ten months had greatly increased. A pulsation was now first noticed in the tumour; then more rapid growth, with a corresponding increase of pain. The skin was not discoloured; the tumour was elastic, but firm; pressure caused little uneasiness, but motion of the arm gave considerable pain. When the tumour was embraced by the hand in all directions, there was a strong pulsation, a distinct feeling of distension, the hand being visibly ele- vated. The sensation and appearance were much stronger at the more prominent part, over and in the axilla. The humeral artery was distinctly felt high up; but in the axilla the pulsation was suddenly lost, as if in the tumour. To the feel, the pulsation was sawing and peculiar. The operation of tying the subclavian artery was performed on the 17th January: on the 7th February sudden hemorrhage supervened : death on the 10th. Upon making a section of the tumour, which consisted of an enlargement of the upper part of the humerus, there was found a conglomerate mass of medullary matter, irre- gularly intersected with ligamento-cartilaginous bands, and having intermediate cavities throughout, of a dirty-brown colour, which seemed to have been recently emptied of blood. The bone in its whole diameter, for three inches downwards, had entirely disappeared. A very few spicula were felt by the knife, on making the section : these, how- ever, were not visible to the eye; and a thin shell of the head, corresponding to the articular surface, only remained. On disarticulation, its surface was sound, as was also the scapular cavity, although the ligamentous structures were much thickened. True scirrhus in bone I suppose to be of rare occurrence. 1 have mentioned that there exists, in the King's College museum, a specimen which looks like a scirrhous tumour, which was found in the medullary cavity of the femur of a person labouring under cancer [d.. 91.] : and there are in](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21066735_0092.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
