110 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
authorities are agreed now upon the disease being non-cancerous and 
non-epithelial, but a small-celled growth comparable to the edge of 
an ulcer rather than to anything else. Some observers make a 
special arrangement of the cells into columns or circular aggre- 
gations, considering this latter essential: with this the author of the 
paper did not agree; he did not think such a precise arrangement 
essential, but rather accidental; or if essential to some varieties of 
the disease, we did not know yet what clinical distinctions cor- 
responded to them. Dr. Warren, of America, Billroth in Germany, 
and Ranvier in France, all class the disease under cancers, and 
describe the presence in greater or less degree of epithelial infil- 
tration, Such a view the writer had from microscopic investigation 
not been able to uphold ; and he thought that everything—at least 
from the clinical aspect—militated against it. Dr, Warren was the 
only writer, as far as he knew, that had insisted upon a peculiar 
arrangement of the fibrous tissue. This he had also noticed, 
The writer then gave a detailed account of three cases, in one of 
which there were two returns of the growth after extirpation, and in 
these he had found an excessive infiltration of small round cells, 
similar to those of ordinary inflammation rather than to true epithe- 
lium; no definite arrangement of the cells; no transition between 
them and the epidermis, and no projection unduly of the latter down 
into the cellular tissue ; a great abundance of fibrous tissue, formed 
apparently from the intercellular material; it lay as much under the 
granulating part of the ulcer as under the skin around ; its direction 
was mostly ascending towards and at right angles to the free surface. 
It seemed to come from bundles, that threw out bold curves of the 
tissue on either side, so that under a low power, almost a tree-like 
appearance was seen. It is this that is referred to and figured by 
Warren. In all cases the great excess of fibrous tissue making its 
way where the induration extends, even close under the free surface 
of the granulations, was remarkable, 
In fine, the author agreed with English observers generally, in 
the non-epitheliomatous character of rodent ulcer, but thought that 
the great excess and peculiar situation of fibrous tissue as much a 
distinctive mark as any peculiar grouping of the cells, and ventured 
to suggest that the so-called nests of epithelium described by some 
may only have been normal epithelium, e. g. of hair follicles, very 
obliquely cut. 
Mr. Fred. Durham expressed his belief in rodent ulcer being 
a small-celled growth and non-epitheliomatous, 
Mr. Giles quoted an instance of normal epithelium having been 
mistaken for nests of epithelium in a sarcomatous growth. 
Mr. Henry Morris, rather from the clinical aspect of the disease, 
considered rodent ulcer as quite distinct from epithelioma, though 
not able to say what microscopic diagnostic character it might 
possess. He had only that day examined a case of thirteen years’ 
duration that had excavated the face, and he had found a markedly 
tubular arrangement of the cells, similar to the cases described by 
Mr. Hulke and referred to in the paper. 
