RECENT VIEWS RESPECTING CANCER. 535 



blood or to sppear secondarily at different places in the body of the 

 same patient. The malignant tumors, on the other hand, are those 

 which are not limited by a capsule. They reach out and involve all 

 kinds of tissue vvhich happen to be near them ; they infect the blood, 

 and new colonies form at points situated at a distance from the parent 

 growth. There is hardly a doubt but that malignant growths are 

 quite local at the outset, but, like red ants, the microbes make more 

 and more nests in the same field. As with red ants, too, we often 

 fail to eradicate the colony, because many members may be away 

 from home at the time when the nests are destroyed. 



Malignant tumors have been produced in the dog by inoculation 

 from an infected dog, in the horse by inoculation from the dog, and 

 the horse has been inoculated from the horse. We are afraid that 

 cancer is inoculable between animals and man, and between man and 

 man, but on this point medical literature at present furnishes little re- 

 liable testimony. 



"Why it is that the cancer microbes which enter a cut on the sur- 

 geon's finger do not regularly produce cancer in the surgeon is a fact 

 not easily explained. It is, however, a well-known fact, that certain 

 other species of microbes are very particular about sites for their 

 homes, and we may suppose that the cancer microbe finds a suitable 

 field for growth in a relatively small number of persons. 



"NVhen a malignant tumor is developing at any one point the lym- 

 phatic vessels in the vicinity are involved at an early date, and they 

 eventually serve as channels for the passage of the disease into the blood. 



If a far advanced primary growth of cancer could be stained in its 

 entirety with a black dye, and if the patient were transparent, we 

 should probably see that the tissues round about the growth were 

 dusky, and that a thin, smoky coloring extended through the lym- 

 phatic vessels to the veins into which they empty. As a malignant 

 tumor increases in size at its original situation the nerve filaments are 

 pinched, and pain is caused as a rule ; but sometimes the growth will 

 progress with little or no accompanying pain. 



When an operation by a competent surgeon is performed during 

 the early stages of the disease, it may be eradicated completely ; and 

 even in cases in which considerable headway has been gained the sur- 

 geon is able to give long periods of immunity from the return of the 

 growth. Patients, however, are unfortunately familiar with the tra- 

 ditions of old-time wound treatment, and the dread of an operation is 

 so great that they seldom act in the matter until it is too late to hope 

 for a cure. 



The operation for the removal of a malignant growth causes no 

 real suffering when it is done by the surgeons of to-day, who employ 

 anesthetics for preventing pain during an operation and antiseptics 

 for limiting inflammation afterward. The scientific antiseptic methods 

 of wound treatment deal directly with species of microbes with which 



