On tumours in voluntary muscles : with an analysis of sixty-two cases and remarks on the treatment / by W.F. Teevan.
- Teevan, W. F. (William Frederic), 1834-1887
- Date:
- [1863]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On tumours in voluntary muscles : with an analysis of sixty-two cases and remarks on the treatment / by W.F. Teevan. 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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![1863.] met with transversely-striated cells in a tumour of tho testis, and both' Virchow and Kolliker have discovered “elongated, fusiform, trans- versely-striated cells” in an ovarian tumour. Virchow* expressly states that, in pathological formations, “those elements are most rarely imi- tated which belong to the more highly organized, and especially to the muscular and nervous systems. Still, these formations are by no means excluded; we find pathological new formations of every description,, no matter to what tissue they may be analogous, provided it possess distinctive features. It is only with regard to their frequency and im- portance that a difference prevails.” Most writers are of opinion that the muscular system is only second- arily affected with cancer. Pagetf states, “I have never seen a primary scirrhus cancer in a muscle.” According to Rokitansky,]: “in whatever form this disease presents itself, it is scarcely ever the primary can- cerous affection in any muscle of animal life except the tongue. One or more cancerous growths are almost always found elsewhere, and that in the muscular system is the secondary affection.” Walshe,§ however, inclines to an opposite belief. “Bayle states that the muscles of loco- motion are not observed to be affected with primary cancer, in which respect they differ from those of organic life The fasiculi of Cruveil- hier, however, prove that small cancerous masses may be developed secondarily in the muscles of animal life, without any direct continuity with the original disease; and I have myself seen primary encephaloid infiltration of muscular substance.” He is also of opinion that pri- mary scirrhus may likewise occur. I think there can be no doubt that medullary cancer may exist in muscles as a primary growth or infiltra- tion. Most of the cases of encephaloid that I have enumerated were primary cancers, and three of them were proved post-mortem to have been such. Primary scirrhus, however, must be excessively rare. I have only been able to meet with two cases of it, and they are both exceedingly doubtful. The preparation in the Museum of the College of Surgeons of a pectoral muscle, with several small, “oval, hard, and white” carcinomatous tumours in it, is, in all probability, an instance of that muscle secondarily affected in scirrhus of the breast. Whence do tumours in muscle arise—from the fibril or the inter- fibrillar connective tissue ? It would seem to have been the opinions of most writers that they arose in the interstitial connective tissue. Gross|| expressed the general belief when he wrote : “ The proba- bility is that none of these heteroclite formations are developed in the muscular substance, properly so called, but that they begin in the interfibrillar tissue, from which, as they increase in size, they gradually encroach upon the fleshy fibres, which they thus displace, alter, or destroy.” There can, I think, be no doubt that the non-malignant tumours originate in the interfibrillar tissue. The microscopical exa- minations of cases would seem entirely to point that way; and fibrous tumours can often be demonstrated as arising in the interstitial tissue. t Op. cit. p. 608. § Walshe on Cancer, p. 97. * Cellular Pathology, p. 63. I Op. cit p. 317. || Op. cit. vol. i. p. 748.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22452321_0013.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
