The treatment of cancerous diseases by caustics : a critical enquiry into the modern therapeutics of cancer : being 'the address in surgery' delivered at Birmingham on the occasion of the 24th annual meeting of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association / by Langston Parker.

  • Samuel William Langston Parker
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The treatment of cancerous diseases by caustics : a critical enquiry into the modern therapeutics of cancer : being 'the address in surgery' delivered at Birmingham on the occasion of the 24th annual meeting of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association / by Langston Parker. 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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    safest and the best, and the only one that ought to be employed, and may be used, with the precautions to which I have alluded, with advantage and safety. In speaking of the effects of arsenic, M. Yelpeau makes use of these remarkable expressions : “ Two of the properties attributed to it,” says he, “render its use preferable to that of all other remedies, sup- posing that such attributes are found correct. 1st. If it could be demonstrated, as asserted by M. Manec, that its destructive action is concentrated on the abnormal or morbid tissues only, it must be the most precious of all caustics. And 2nd. If, when mixed with the blood, by absorption, as proved by its pre- sence in the urine, it still preserved this elective action for the destruction of morbid cancerous tissues, would it not, by thus decomposing or destroying the ultimate molecules of the disease, thus place the patient out of the fear of future relapses?” Here in fact is the whole point on which the treat- ment of cancer hangs; it is not the extermination or destruction of the malady locally, which is so much the question, as the prevention of its reappear- ance. If this is ever to be done, it must and will be done by the action of chemical remedies on cancerous growths, and the subsequent mixture, by absorption, of these remedies with the blood; much has been proved in this respect, in reference to arsenic, for ]\I. Lebert tells us that he carefully watched some of Manec’s cases for several years, with this view, but no relapse took place. I must quote another passage from M. Yelpeau, and one from Sir A.