I ;6 MARRIAGE AND DISEASE. 



possible, may give prolonged relief; indeed, death 

 may occur from some other cause before the cancer 

 returns. But in the vast majority of cases it does 

 return in some cases very rapidly, and seemingly with 

 increased virulence and it is generally thought that 

 if life were sufficiently prolonged it would reappear 

 in all cases. Sir James Paget records a case which 

 shows how much and how little the surgeon can do 

 against the disease. It was the case of a lady " whose 

 breast he removed when she was five months advanced 

 in pregnancy. She recovered well from the operation, 

 and the benefit procured by its performance was very 

 great. She bore her child, and was able to suckle it 

 for a year before she died, with her most anxious wish 

 fulfilled, in comparative comfort." What a prospect 

 for the unfortunate child ! 



Of these malignant growths there are several 

 varieties: the hard, called scirrhus, which generally 

 attacks persons in the decline of life, and is rarely 

 seen in persons under forty years of age ; the soft or 

 medullary, which is of more rapid growth, and conse- 

 quently more rapidly fatal, and which in most cases 

 attacks the young and those in the prime of life; the 

 epithelial, which is almost always found in connection 

 with the skin or a mucous surface ; the melanotic, 

 which is so called from the strange fact that many 

 of its cells are so loaded with pigment granules as 

 to render the tissue quite dark in colour; and the 

 osteoid, in which the malignant growth is made np 

 almost wholly of bone. All these forms differ more 



