COMMUNICATIONS AND EXTRACTS. 77 



a few months. I wrote his ordinary mecJical attendant 

 to furnish me with a narrative of his case, which iHiave 

 not yet obtained. 



92. From the cases I have recorded, I may presume 

 that a person with a cancerous diathesis, or predisposi- 

 tion or constitution, smoking a cutty pipe, must be liable 

 to communicate the disease to another who might take 

 up the same pipe. 



93. In the syphilitic constitution, the mucous mem- 

 brane of the mouth is very prone to excitement and 

 ulceration; and if the latter is produced by smoking 

 tobacco, the ulceration, in nine cases out of ten, will 

 degenerate into cancerous or cancroid ulceration, and 

 prove fatal, after lingering and cruel sufferings. 



94. Since I commenced the investigation of cancer 

 of the tongue, I have been led to consider the structure 

 of the tongue. 1st. Can the papillae be the termination 

 of the nerves of sensation — the glosso-pharyngeal and 

 the gustatory branches of the inferior maxillary nerves ? 

 2dly. Do these nerves of sensation terminate in pulpy 

 matter, like the other nerves of sensation ? Thus, the 

 olfactory nerves spread like pulp on the mucous mem- 

 brane of the nares, after passing through the cribriform 

 plate of the ethmoid bone ; the optic nerve becomes the 

 retina, after piercing the sclerotic coat of the eye ; the 

 auditory is distributed on the labyrinth of the ear, viz. 

 the cochlea, vestibule, and three semi-circular canals. 

 The nerves of the fingers form the pacinian bodies. 



Reasoning from analogy, therefore, that four of the 

 senses — smelling, seeing, diearing, and touching — are 

 supplied with nerves which terminate in pulpy expanse, 

 17 



