Case of sloughing of a malignant tumor which contained the femoral vessels : cicatrization of the wound, death from the return of the disease / by J.A. Kingdon.

  • Kingdon, J.A.
Date:
[1850]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Case of sloughing of a malignant tumor which contained the femoral vessels : cicatrization of the wound, death from the return of the disease / by J.A. Kingdon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    contrary, covered with healthy granula- tions up to the twelfth day after the ope- ration, and, as was afterwards discovered, contained within itself the very source of its existence. The mortified mass was so thoroughly disorganized that, under the microscope, little else could be discovered than a crowd of molecules and granules, which had the peculiar appearance of oil-glo- bules, and an occasional cluster of such shiuiug particles held together by an enveloping membrane. Similar appear- ances have been figured by Professor Bennett, of Edinburgh,* and considered by him to be degenerated or disinte- grated cancer cells, identical with “ i'atty degeneration,” and an evidence of decay. Such, too, appeal’s to be Paget’sf inter- pretation of P.okitansky’s “ saponifica- * On Cancerous and Cancroid Growths, fi^s. 16, 41, 48. t Lectures on Nutrition, &c. Med. Gaz. tion of cancer.” Now Rokitansky holds this to be one of the means whereby a spontaneous cure of the disease may be effected; whereas most surgical wri- ters on the subject look upon it as an unfavourable symptom, and one that is rapidly followed by the development of the disease in internal organs. Ledran,* Rouzet,f Richerand, and Boyer, enter- tain this view, and their opinions are furthered by the present case. To discuss every point of interest in the case—the position of the tumor, the cause of the sloughing, the process by which rather more than an inch of the femoral artery was separated without haemorrhage, and the rest—would be no light undertaking, nor one in accordance with the object of this paper; so that upon the mere record of the facts must depend its value. * Tr. des Op<!r. de Chir. t Rech. sur le Cancer.
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