178 NEUROMATA. 



tunity of examining, was made up of transversely striated 

 spindle-shaped cells ; so too, a myoma of the vaginal mucous 

 membrane, which showed an obstinate tendency to recur. Pure 

 leiomyomata, when they occur in the bowel, the urinary bladder, 

 &c., exhibit throughout the structure of muscular membranes. 

 I assert boldly that no one who has once investigated a tumour 

 of this kind is ever likely to confound simple spindle-cells with 

 muscular fibre-cells. The remarkable uniformity in size and 

 appearance of all the cells and nuclei, enabling them to unite 

 closely into fibrous bands of very elegant texture, has something 

 extremely distinctive about it. The naked-eye appearances, the 

 interlacement of the fibrous bands, unquestionably remind one of 

 the fibromata ; but I have never been able to recognise the exist- 

 ence of a fibro-muscular tumour in Firchoiv^s sense of the word. 

 In a myoma of the testicle, I found groups of ganglion-cells, and 

 stroma-fibres. (See Testicle.) 



g. Neuromata, 



§ 145. The term neuroma is used to denote any histioid 

 tumour which may happen to be intercalated in the course of a 

 nerve-trunk ; it is employed wnth especial frequency to denote 

 fibromata and myxomata ; hence we must distinguish in limine 

 between /aL^6? neuromata, such as these, and the true neuromata, 

 which consist chiefly of newly-formed nerve-fibres and ganglion- 

 cells. A tumour of this sort, as large as a hen's egg^ situated 

 in the retiring angle between the ribs and the anterior circum- 

 ference of the vertebral column, has recently been observed 

 (^Schmidt, Frankfurt-am-Main). It merits especial notice, inas- 

 much as it seems to be the first recorded example of a true neu- 

 roma not of hyperplastic origin. True, its situation does not 

 absolutely exclude all possibility of its having originated by over- 

 growth of a sympathetic ganglion ; should this be its true 

 character, it would come under the same category as those cir- 

 cumscribed overgrowths of the greater cerebral ganglia (thala- 

 mus opticus, corpus striatum) which have been more often met 

 with, as well as those fusiform enlargements of the peripheric 

 nerve-trunks, consisting of nerve-fibres, which Virchow has de- 

 scribed under the name of true neuromata. 



