4 THE TONER LECTURES. 



any actual differences in the composition of the blood which 

 might serve for such a foundation as the speculation sorely 

 needed. 



Nor was it strange that under the influence of the doctrine 

 of dyscrasice, the notion should arise that the specialized blas- 

 temata must express their specific natures by giving birth to 

 peculiar elementary forms, or that the histologists of the day, 

 very imperfectly acquainted with the normal structure of the 

 body, and bewildered by the multiplicity of forms they ob- 

 served in morbid growths, should too hastily have adopted the 

 plausible doctrine of specific cancer cells, which more extended 

 observation speedily rendered quite untenable. 



The chief actor in the work of sweeping away these specu- 

 lative opinions was unquestionably Virchow, to whom modern 

 medical science owes so much in so many diverse directions. 

 Virchow found, as any one may still do, in the connective 

 tissue in the vicinity of cancers and many other morbid 

 growths, little groups and rows of cells which he supposed to 

 have been developed out of the normal connective tissue corpus- 

 cles. Similar heaps and rows were to be observed in the connec- 

 tive tissue of inflamed organs. The general doctrine was enun- 

 ciated that the elements of all pathological new formations had 

 their origin in the multiplication of normal cells, and that the 

 connective tissue corpuscles were the actual point of departure 

 in by far the majority of cases. The 3'oung cancer elements 

 were, after all, not anatomically different at first from those of 

 granulation tissue ; it was in the monstrous development they 

 subsequently underwent, and the premature retrograde meta- 

 morphoses by which they were smitten in the midst of their 

 most luxuriant growth, that the key to the external history of 

 cancer was to be sought. Against the doctrine of a primary 

 cancerous dyscrasia, Virchow protested. The origin of the 

 first growth was always to be looked for in local influences. 

 Former injuries of one kind or another could be ajtfirmed in a 



