Renal growths : their pathology, diagnosis and treatment / by T. N. Kelynack.

  • Theophilus Kelynack
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Renal growths : their pathology, diagnosis and treatment / by T. N. Kelynack. 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.

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    specimens already classified in museums, I am much struck bj the fact that a large number of malignant growths, which should properly be placed under the sarcomata, are still classified as cancers. In the statistics drawn from his collected cases, he appears, however, to have arranged the growths as they were named in the published records. In very many instances it would seem that the early writers did not clearly distinguish between primary and secondary growths. This point alone makes the early statistics far from reliable. The present position is forcibly put by Bland Sutton, who, writing in 1893, in his work on Tumours, says : It has been so much the fashion with surgeons to describe malignant tumours of the kidney, under the meaningless title, of ' encephaloid,' that we have no histological data to guide us in determining the nature of such tumours. He goes on to add that I am convinced from my own investigation that a large proportion of such tumours are in reality sarcomata, but I am equally certain that in a few ' encephaloid' tumours of the kidney abnormal development of epithelium is a distinguishing feature. I am heartily in agreement with Mr. Sutton when he says : It is impossible to write an account of carcinoma of the kidney until surgeons are more alive to the interest of the question, and take steps to place malignant tumours of the kidney, while fresh, in the hands of experienced pathological histologists. There is no doubt more rapid advance would be made in our knowledge of the growths of the kidney, if surgeons would, to use Mr. Malcolm's words, look for guidance in treatment to a careful study of clinical histories and of the microscopic structure of the specimens removed. References.—A short reference to the literature of the sub- ject, and especially to the articles of some of the early writers, may not be without interest, and will serve to indicate the lines along which investigation has progressed up to the present day. Only a very few vague and doubtful allusions to growths of the kidney can be found previous to the present century. Sennert in 1650 speaks of scirrhus of the kidney, but, as was pointed out by Rayer, very probably these early cases were not examjjles of growth at all. The references made by Morgagni and Chopart also seem very doubtful.