The Minute Anatomy of Tivo Cases of Cancer. 113 
regained full constitutional vigour. In March, 1867, her health 
began to give way, and during April her strength failed rapidly, so 
that she was confined to her bed. Loss of appetite and vomiting 
were prominent symptoms. 
After a time there was some temporary improvement, the vomit- 
ing ceased and her appetite returned, becoming in fact excessive. A 
tumour now appeared in the left breast, and the attention of her 
medical attendant was drawn to a decided enlargement of the spleen. 
No great pain was complained of, but the patient emaciated con- 
stantly, lost strength progressively, and died March 22, 1868, the 
tumour in the left breast not having yet ulcerated. 
Autopsy by Dr. D. S. Lamb. The body was extremely ema- 
ciated. There was a small, hard, nodulated tumour of the left 
breast. The lymphatic glands of the axilla, neck, and groin were 
enlarged and indurated. The thoracic and abdominal cavities were 
filled with straw-coloured serum. The lungs were coated with 
lymph, but there were no adhesions. The lower lobe of the left 
lung was congested and somewhat oedematous. There was some 
little serum in the pericardium. The heart and pericardium, liver, 
spleen, and internal organs of generation were removed, together 
with the tumour of the breast, and sent to the Army Medical 
Museum for study, by Dr. George Eice, the attending physician. 
These specimens are preserved in the Medical Section. The 
following is a description of their characters : — 
No. 955, Medical Section. The left mammary gland, which is 
transformed into an oval, flat, somewhat nodulated scirrhous tumour, 
three and a half inches long by two and a half broad, and about an 
inch thick in the centre. 
In thin sections of this tumour individual lacteal alveoli and 
ducts, stuffed with large cells, derived evidently from the glandular 
epithelium, were but sparsely scattered, and the greater portion of 
the gland was replaced by a peculiar scirrhous tissue, in which its 
scanty atrophied remains were imbedded. This peculiar tissue con- 
sisted of a firm, delicately-fibrillated connective-tissue stroma, con- 
taining numerous small cells and many fine elastic fibres, and of a 
plexus of irregular, varicose, nucleated cylinders of protoplasm, cor- 
responding in many respects to the “ cell cylinders ” of Koester, 
which intimately interlaced with the connective-tissue stroma, filling 
all its meshes except those occupied by the vessels and the atrophied 
remainder of the gland. These nucleated cylinders did not appear 
to be composed of separate cells. They seemed rather to consist of 
a granular protoplasm, in which innumerable nuclei, y aVoth to 
20 V of^ 1 an inch in long diameter, or even larger, were imbedded 
side by side, without any evidence of limiting cell-walls separating 
the protoplasm surrounding each nucleus from that belonging to 
its neighbours. On scraping or teasing the sections, moreover, the 
k 2 
