CHAPTER XXI. 



DISEASED GEOWTHS 



The limits of the present work forbid any systematic de- 

 scription of the various degenerations of tissue (fatty, min- 

 eral, amyloid, pigmentary, etc.,) and of the tumors or dis- 

 eased growths which appear in different parts of the 

 system. The last will only be noticed so far as to point 

 out the principal distinctive characters of the malignant 

 tumors or cancers, and the simple. 



Simple Tumors are composed of elements like those 

 previously existing at the same or some other part of the 

 body ; they do not tend to draw surrounding structures 

 into their substance, but grow between these and push 

 them aside ; usually they are surrounded by distinct saca 

 which separate them completely from surrounding tissues 

 except where the blood-vessels enter ; they do not tend to 

 produce swellings in the nearest lymphatic glands, by rea- 

 son of propagation of elements absorbed from the dis- 

 eased mass, nor an imhealthy constitutional state — dys- 

 crasia — tending to the formation of such diseased masses 

 in internal organs ; and their elements tend to be resolved 

 mainly into fat or gelatine by boiling, which shows there 

 is little albumen in their structure. 



Cancers, on the other hand, usually contain elements 

 unlike any previously existing in the system. The pres- 

 ence of large cells, each containing smaller ones (nuclei) 

 in its interior, and these still smaller nuclei (nucleoli), was 

 at one time thought characteristic of cancer, and though 

 this cannot now he maintained, yet the abundance of such 



