The Morton lecture on cancer and cancerous diseases delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England on Monday, the 18th November, 1889 / by John Marshall.

  • John Marshall
Date:
1890
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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 Monday, the 18th November, 1889 / by John Marshall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    cancer cells do really impregnate, as it were, the deep-seated muscular tissue and the spaces between the muscular fibres, and unless these are removed a return is almost sure to occur. The old form of sweeping operation therefore should be always held in respect. I believe that its good results, which were perfectly astonishing, depended on that. It does not matter about deformity—it is the preservation of the patient’s life ; and a very sweeping use of the knife is better, I would say, than any cautery, any yet tried electricity, any form of temporising with caustics, with pressure, with cold, or any such means. They may answer, and in future that great force of electricity, now again on its trial in a special form by Dr. Inglis Parsons, may come to be specially useful. I admit its value, and wish it all success; but at the same time remember that it will only destroy what it reaches, and although it is extremely remarkable to find that the cancer tissues seem to dwindle under its influence whilst the healthy tissues resist it, still, remembering the acid juice of cancer, remembering the mode in wThich it penetrates into the vacuities of the living tissues, what a tendency it has towards them, and remembering that in spite of electrical destruction this may go on, and then considering, again, the requisite repeated application of electricity, which comes to be like the repeated application of a cautery of a simple character—remembering all this, I say we may find that it will ultimately be regarded as inferior to the knife. The knife, which sounds so cruel, but which is not indeed cruel under the influence of anaesthetics and the use of anti¬ septic treatment—the knife is the most feasible method of removing these growths. After the knife, however, I certainly in my own practice, where I have the slightest doubt as to the complete extirpation of the growth, apply some kind of acid caustic. I do that, and I have found it extremely valuable. I have not cumbered this lecture with personal records of cases, but when I look back to my whole experience I find some very successful ones in which accidental haemorrhage came on, and in which I had to undo a wound and apply powerful caustics—perchloride of iron, and perhaps chloride of zinc. There are special cases which I could point to in
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