EXTRACT XXXVI. 



ON CANCER. 



AFTER the study of leprosy and tuberculosis, but more 

 especially of leprosy, we find, on approaching the subject 

 of cancer as a morbid entity, that a certain suggestiveness 

 of, in some respects, similarity between the affections of an 

 etiological and intrinsic character presents itself, and gives 

 us a clue, which, if we can follow it, seems to promise 

 some, we hope, good result ; at any rate, we think no 

 harm can be done to the subject or ourselves by a short 

 indulgence in amateur detective exercise^ even should it 

 turn out no more than fiction. 



Thus, having endeavoured to prove that leprosy is a 

 disease primarily of the nervous system, and that it is due 

 to mechanical and bacterial interference with the excretory 

 economy of the systemic nervous system and to the morbid 

 after-effects accruing therefrom, we would, therefore, take 

 up the clue suggested by our study of that disease, and 

 endeavour to unravel, as far as we can at least, some of the 

 profoundly important and no less interesting problems 

 involved in the study of cancer. The disease now called 

 cancer, or malignant disease proper, has not so long been 

 a subject of lay, as well as professional interest, as leprosy 

 has, though, no doubt, it has entailed quite as much study, 

 and has given rise to even a greater modern desire on 

 the part of the profession and the educated public to 

 fathom its true nature, in order to the devisal of appro- 

 priate means for its relief and extinction. So far as results 

 can be computed, we have only 1 as yet attained a distant 

 view of some of the salient features of the terra incognita 



