The Morton Lecture on cancer and cancerous diseases : delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England on Friday, Nov. 11, 1887 / by Sir James Paget.

  • James Paget
Date:
1887
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Morton Lecture on cancer and cancerous diseases : delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England on Friday, Nov. 11, 1887 / by Sir James Paget. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    I use tills vague term c morbid substance5 on purpose that I may not pretend to definition or exact description. The reasons are, indeed, constantly increasing for the be¬ lief that each of many specific diseases is due to morbid changes produced, directly or indirectly, by a distinct species of minute parasite, a microbe, a bacillus, or some other vegetable of lowest organisation, yet specific—as specific as any of the species much more highly organised. I believe that micro-parasites, or substances produced by them, will some day be found in essential relation with cancers and cancerous diseases. Mr. Ballance and Mr. Shattock have, indeed, lately failed to find any; and if, in such a question as this, negative evidence could prove a negative, certainly theirs might make us hopeless. I would not be so, especially if workers so earnest and so skilful as they are will continue the search; but for the present it will be best to use such terms as morbid material, virus, or specific material, which, I think, we may be sure are at least not erroneous. The specific diseases which we believe and generally know to depend on morbid materials in the blood are very numerous—the eruptive fevers, many of the diseases of the skin, tetanus, hydrophobia, ague, and many more. They may be vaguely arranged in groups, each of which may include those which are most nearly alike ; and the group by which the conformity of cancers and cancerous diseases may be tested is one that includes, as its chief members, syphilis, tuberculosis, glanders, leprosy, and acti- some modes of stating my beliefs. The better knowledge of the materials on which specific diseases depend has shown that they may be contained in blood which is fit for the healthy maintenance of every part except, it may be, one. It seems better, therefore, to speak of morbid or morbific materials in the blood than of a morbid condition of the blood. And I have not used the word ‘ constitutional,’ for it has become as indefinite and misleading in pathology as it seems to be in politics.
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