An experimental investigation into the causation of cancer / by D'Arcy Power.

  • Power, D'Arcy, Sir, 1855-1941.
Date:
[1894]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An experimental investigation into the causation of cancer / by D'Arcy Power. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    3/10
    Reprinted for the Author from the BuiTisn Medical JounNAt, Sept. 23nd, 1894. AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE CAUSATION OF CANCER. By D'Arcy Power, M.A., M.B.Oxon., F.R.O.S.Eng., Surgeon to the Victoria Hospital for Children, Chelsea; Demonstrator of Surgery at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. [From the Conjoint Laboratories of the Royal Colleges of Physicians (Lond.) and Surgeons (Eng.)] I BBOUGHT before you, gentlemen, in a former paper^ certain positive results obtained in the course of an experimental study of the causation of cancer. I propose now to give you a short account of the continuation of a series of experiments upon the same subject. A double purpose will thereby be served, for it will show that, so far as I am concerned, the experimental side of the cancer question is limited, whilst the time of other investigators will be saved by stating the directions in which my work has failed. In the present series of experiments I assumed that a protozoon was present in cancer, and I have endeavoured to trace it from the tissue forwards into the soil, and thence onwards into the animal. I endeavoured to prepare each animal as far as possible for the reception of the germ by the methods which clinical ex- perience has taught us to be the most favourable for its pro- duction or for its development. With this object in view, very old or very young animals were selected, and of varieties as far as possible removed from the wild type, for it is well known that fancy breeds are more delicate and are more prone to new growths than their wild fellows. Mr. Haviland has come to definite conclusions in regard to the frequency with which cancer occurs in different localities. His results were arrived at entirely by statistical methods, and it therefore appeared to be worth while to ascertain whether they could be checked by experiment. In his book on The Geographical Distribution of Disease in Great Britain^ Mr. Haviland says : In the counties having a high mortality from cancer we find that the tributaries of the large rivers rise from soft, marly, or otherwise easily disintegrated rocks, and then fall into sheltered valleys, through which the main rivers fiow. These rivers invariably flood their ad- jacent districts during the rainy season, and have generally their water coloured by the suspension of alluvial matter. The Thames counties characterised by their tertiary soil and frequently flooded river, form, as itwere,atypical cancerfield. Dr. Fiessinger, who practises at Oyannax, a small town in the Department of the Ain, situated on the banks of the I Bbitish Mbdicai, Jodbnal, ii, 1893, p. 8.30. 2 Lond., 1892 edit., p. .37. ft