520 MICRO-ORGANISMS AND DISEASE [chap. 



inflammation of skin, &c.) that have nothing whatever to do 

 with cancer. It must, however, be left open whether this 

 interpretation is or is not a correct one ; though amongst 

 the figures given by the different observers as showing 

 intracellular spores (Sjobring, Ruffer, and Walker) there are 

 some that cannot be distinguished from vacuoles in the 

 protoplasms of epithelial cells. 



4. As to the presence of rounded transparent cells with 

 one, two, or more nuclei amongst, or even within, the 

 epithelial cells, there is nothing to distinguish them from 

 ordinary leucocytes. They are met with in cancer, and 

 they are met with in the normal epithelium of the palate, 

 tonsil, and back of the tongue. To assume with L. Pfeiffer 

 that these are amcebo-sporidia seems quite gratuitous. The 

 same applies to the occurrence of kerato-hyaline cells which 

 are said to be a phase of the cancer coccidium. 



5. Perhaps the most important bodies that have been 

 adduced as cancer parasites are those described by Korotneff 

 in Centralblatt f. Bakt. utid Farasitenk., vol. xiii., p. 373. 

 Under the name of rophalocephalus cardnomatosus, Korotneff 

 describes a pedunculated and band-like protoplasmic mass, 

 consisting of a spheroidal or pear shaped nucleated " head," 

 and, directly continued from it, a band-like longer or shorter 

 protoplasmic mass. The whole is without a sheath and is 

 situated partly within and partly without the epithelial cells 

 of a cancer; and the band-like stalk is several times the 

 diameter of the individual epithelial cells. In this form the 

 " parasite " is considered as an adult one, whereas smaller 

 uni-, duo-, or pluri-nucleated masses without stalks are con- 

 sidered young or growing forms— gregarina forms. This 

 parasite was found not only in carcinoma labii but also in 

 carcinoma mammas, maxillae, &c. Kurloff in Centralblatt f. 

 Bakt. und Parasit., vol. xv., p. 341, adduces confirmatory 



