160 



riBEOUS SARCOMATA. 



sarcomata of great size occur, which betray their true character at 

 first only by a black or brown marbling, a mottled or piebald 

 appearance. The deep brown-black, sepia tint is confined to the 

 most extreme degree of pigmentary infiltration. 



A fibromatous character is only exhibited, according to 

 VircJioiCj by the melanotic fungosities of white horses, alluded 

 to above ; tumours differing in their benign character from all 

 other melano-sarcomata, which are invariably malignant. 



Fibrous Sarcomata. 



^ 128. VII. The Fibroid. I cannot separate the fibromata from 

 the sarcomata. Just as we sought the prototypes of the round- 

 cell and spindle-cell sarcomata in the round and spindle-cell 

 tissues of inflammatory proliferation, so we shall find the proto- 

 type of the fibromata in the formed tissue of cicatrices. 



The common fibroid (desmoid) consists of a fibrous, reddish- 

 white, stiffly-elastic substance, so dense and tough or even hard, 

 that it creaks under the knife. Its structural elements are 

 identical with those of cicatricial tissue. If we tear off a fine 

 fibril from the cut surface of the tumour, and tease it out, we 

 are amazed at the enormous bulk v>'hich it assumes, i.e. at tlie 



Fig. 51. 



Transverse section through a fibroma of the uterus. 3^—. a. 

 Isolated cellular elements ; I. fasciculus teased out to show 

 its component fibrilla?. -i^. 



enormous number of yet finer fibrilla) into which it allows itself 

 to be broken up. The microscope shows us, moreover, that each 



