202 PHYSIC 



likewise be applied to the evolution of organic disease 

 generally. 



Being a disease of nervine origin, and involving 

 primarily the sympathetic neural elements, it is necessarily 

 dependent for the manner of its evolution and progress 

 on the structural conditions imposed by the histological 

 disposition and functional work of the sympathetic nervous 

 system. These structural conditions of the sympathetic 

 are fundamentally different from those of the systemic 

 nervous system, at least on its sensory side, where, for 

 instance, the nerve terminals end in the skin, and are there 

 provided with a means of direct, entire, and final disposal 

 of effete or excrementitial matter, the stoppage of which 

 leads to the production of such diseases as leprosy ; on its 

 motor side, however, we find a greater analogy or resem- 

 blance between the two systems in their terminal distri- 

 bution, inasmuch as these so-called motor terminals end in 

 muscle, and thereafter pursue a further course along the 

 lines of least resistance, or until the highways of the proper 

 vascular and lymphatic circulation are once more reached. 

 Lapse of function, traumatism of texture, and retention 

 or non-removal of the functionless tissue in molecule and 

 mass become thus the foundations on which the initiation 

 of the morbid entity known as cancer, or malignant disease, 

 as of many non-malignant diseases, rests, and from which 

 its succeeding stages are by continuity evolved, and the 

 life of the subject, if that continuity be allowed to proceed 

 unbroken to its usual close, sapped and destroyed. 



On this foundation the future stages of malignant 

 growth are laid, and from this point begin to spring the 

 chemico-physiological phenomena, the phases of cellular 

 mitosis, morbid developments and changes, and the more 

 evident signs of bacterial workings in the forms of struc- 

 tural monstrosity and toxinal impregnation, which make 

 up the sum of the pathological circumstances and pheno- 

 mena comprised under the generic term cancer. 



The first stage of cancer, and, of course, the initial 

 influences essential for its establishment are comprised 

 herein ; from here, therefore, we must necessarily begin to 

 trace the disease, and become familiar with the conditions, 

 material and dynamic, on which the quality of malignancy 



