412 Tumors. 



In the interior organs cancers form nodes of widely varying 

 dimensions, sometimes sharply circumscribed and rounded, or with 

 their tissue gradually merging by infiltrative extension with that 

 of the synchronously enlarging organ. The whole organ, as a 

 kidney, may be incorporated into the tumor tissue, and in its stead a 

 shapeless mass of cancer is met weighing perhaps from one to 

 fifteen kilograms. The tendency to perforate to the surface of the 

 involved orgfan is a marked characteristic of cancers. Another 

 peculiar feature is the production of cancer umbilication, seen 

 rather irregularly in the smaller nodes [secondary nodes] about 

 to perforate through serous surfaces ; it is a central depression 

 seen in these nodes due to the prominence of the marginal 

 growth and destruction of the interior of the node. On section 

 of cancers a milky fluid or juice, briefly known as "cancer milk," 

 may frequently be obtained by scraping the cut surface or may be 

 expressed in drops by compression with the fingers ; upon micro- 

 scopic examination it is apparently almost entirely composed of the 

 epithelial cells (with fatty degenerative changes) of which the 

 cancer is constructed. 



The secretion of mucus and of colloid substance, as seen in 

 adenocarcinomata of mucous membranes and follicular glands 

 (ovary, thyroid) and the retention of these materials in the tumor 

 tissue sometimes gives an unusual softness and transparency to the 

 cancerous growth, the name gelatinous cancer being often used in 

 connection with such examples. [The term colloid cancer has, from 

 confusion, 'been employed indiscriminately in these cases. Colloid 

 cancer, using the term in its strict sense, is practically confined to 

 the thyroid gland, and even there much of the gelatinous material 

 contained in it is not definitely colloid, but rather mucoid. The 

 use of the term colloid for these gelatinous cancers in other situa- 

 tions of the body (stomach, intestine, ovary, etc.) is almost sure 

 to be wrong; the change really being a collection of some type 

 of mucin within the epithelial cells and perhaps also in the tissue. 

 The cells which in older text books are described as "colloid seal- 

 ring cells" are really nothing but mucoid goblet cells, quite like those 

 found in a catarrhal mucous surface, but modified by pressure so as 

 to have a rounded shape, flie mucin in their interior pressing the 

 nucleus and a part of the cytoplasm to one side so as to form the 

 prominence compared to the seal of a ring.] On the other 

 hand some cancers come to be very dense and cicatricial in consist- 

 ence in case the associated growth of their connective tissue should 

 be unusually marked in quantity, jn density of fibrillation and in- 



