EXTRACT XVT. 



ON METASTASIS. 



METASTASIS is a term used to signify transposition or 

 removal of disease from one region, organ, or structure to 

 another. It has been in common use in medical literature 

 for a long time, but its existence as a pathological occur- 

 rence has been objected to for various reasons, and it has. 

 been held by some to be an impossibility. Be that as it 

 may, we persuade ourselves that it is a term of great 

 convenience, and contains, in however limited a sense, a 

 truth and relevancy of a remarkably cogent character when 

 applied to the description of certain well-known character- 

 istics of gout and rheumatism, for instance. 



Thus, in the latter of these diseases in its most acute form, 

 we have witnessed some of the most appalling occurrences 

 which fall to the lot of the medical practitioner to observe, 

 the most typical example of which is the sudden and 

 complete cessation or disappearance of all local and general 

 pain and distress, the immediate or subsequent and liter- 

 ally intoxicated belief of the patient in his entire recovery 

 and safety from his late sufferings, and his confidence in 

 the future of his case, culminating in the immediate or 

 gradual development of intellectual paralysis, coma, and 

 death ; the whole of which occurrences succeed each other 

 with the rapidity and in the manner of a lethal toxis from 

 an over-dose of a powerful narcotic poison. How to 

 account for these pathological occurrences we confess our- 

 selves unable to discover on any other principle than that 

 of metastasis or transference of the materies morbi of the 

 rheumatic disease from the peripheral motor structures of 



