CARCINOMA OF THE THYROID IN SALMONOID FISHES. 497 



children, a flagellate disease which, when the patient was transferred to Rio Janeiro, 

 he was able to transfer to the silky monkey by means of the barbeiro. The charac- 

 teristic symptoms of the disease in the children were enlargement of the thyroid, the 

 stupefied appearance of the child, and enlargement of the lympahtic glands. He also 

 succeeded in inoculating guinea pigs with the flagellate organism by injecting the blood 

 of the infected children. 



He divided the disease into an acute and a chronic form. The chronic form is char- 

 acterized by hypertrophy of the thyroid affecting one or both of the lobes of the thyroid 

 and frequently the isthmus. Even in young children the enlargement of the thyroid 

 may be very marked. He says that in some regions the disease is verv' widespread and 

 here infantiUsm and cretinism are very prevalent. All these individuals presented the 

 characteristic enlargement of the thyroid. The histologic picture of the disease is in 

 part an inflammatory reaction of the stroma of the thyroid with outspoken sclerosis. 

 In such cases the alveoli are small and the lumen reduced. The colloid is usually 

 decreased in amount and stains poorly. In the vesicles there appears to be desquama- 

 tion and degenerative changes of the epithelium which fill the lumina of the alveoli. 

 The islands of epithelium which normally lie between the vesicles appear to have been 

 increased by proliferation, in some covering extensive areas. Large cysts filled with 

 colloid characterize the last stages of the chronic form, with occasional calcification of 

 the cyst wall. 



In cancer of various kinds intermediary carriers have been suspected. The well- 

 known association of cancer in Bilharzia disease with the important trematode parasite, 

 Distomum haematobium, is classic. Borrel in 1 906 reported having found very frequently 

 in mouse cancer, in the immediate neighborhood of or within the tumor, occasional 

 small nematode worms. These, he did not think, were themselves in etiologic relation 

 to the tumors, other than as possible carriers of a specific virus. This theory was 

 strengthened in his mind by finding in the left kidney of a rat, which died of a cancerous 

 tumor in the right kidney, a small cyst containing a very young cysticercus, which was 

 identified as belonging to the Tsenia crassicola of the cat. Upon the membrane of this 

 cyst, which was attached to the tissue of the kidney, he found a small tumor of identical 

 structure to that of the larger tumor of the right kidney. 



In the second case, furnished him by Laveran, a rat died of a tumor of the liver 

 of the size of an orange, in the exact center of which was found a cyst with a tumor 

 growing out from it in all directions. This cyst contained a cysticercus which was 

 again identified as belonging to the Tsenia crassicola of the cat. Microscopically this 

 tumor was a large-celled sarcoma. Bipolar and multipolar karyokinetic figures were 

 very numerous. This tumor proved to be transplantable and had produced large 

 tumors for three or more generations. Borrel felt that the successful transplantation of 

 this tumor strongly indicated that the cysticercus had carried with it a virus which it was 

 possible to propagate with the cells. Finally he called attention to the possible relation 

 of helminthia and cancer and felt that this hypothesis was in accord with the frequent 

 tumors of the digestive tracts and the appendix. He thought that the endemic occur- 



