332 Tumors. 



some tumors give off into the surrounding tissues metabolic pro- 

 ducts having chemotactic power and thus stimulate leucocytes 

 to escape from the vessels. To all appearances we may ascribe 

 to the products of disintegration Occasioned by bacterial contam- 

 inations and occurring in connection with the various degenera- 

 tions in tumors the fact that in a number of these growths 

 there occur general nutritive disturbances (oligsemia, loss of 

 appetite, marked loss of strength, emaciation), which look like 

 the result of a chronic intoxication — a condition known as tumor 

 cachexia. 



Just as the specifically differentiated cells of the body give 

 off specific products, in the same way the different kinds of 

 tumor cells, as the offspring of this or that variety of physio- 

 logical cells, produce in more or less similar manner the sub- 

 stances characteristic of the latter ; it may be claimed that they 

 too perform physiological functions.* This function, however, 

 is only in the rarest instances of any service to the general 

 system ; being without au}^ relation to the co-ordinated activities 

 of the rest of the organs, it is merely a vital phenomenon of 

 the independent cellular complex of the tumor. The formation 

 of intercellular substances by the tumor cells, as the formation 

 of osteoid callus in tumors arising from periosteum, is an 

 example of such function ; but tumors originating from gland- 

 ular cells and having gland-like structure show this power 

 especially, and are able to produce the sam'e secretory sub- 

 stances as the corresponding glands. Thus cancers of the intes- 

 tinal mucous membrane secrete mucus from goblet cells; thyroid 

 cancers produce colloid ; tumors of the mammary gland form a 

 secretion analogous to milk (but pathologically altered), and 

 tumors arising from liver cells often secrete so much bile that 

 the growth becomes thoroughly infiltrated with it (icteric). E. 

 Albrecht has observed that the formation of red blood corpuscles 

 normally performed by the bone marrow may also be carried 

 on by a tumor of the dura mater made up of endothelial cells 

 and erythroblasts. 



As all offsprings of given cells manifest an ability given them 

 by heredity to perform the same fimctions as their predecessors, 

 it may be expected that the metastatic nodules also show the 

 same phenomenon. For example, one of a number of metastatic 

 nodes which had formed in the lung from a tumor originating in 



*E. Albrecht, Sitsungshericlit d. morph. pln/s. Gesellschaft in Miinchen, 

 1901. Heft II. 



