218 VETERINARY SURGICAL THERAPEUTICS. 
or mineral acids) are sufficient to destroy them. When they are wide and 
flat or intimately implanted in the tissues so that their removal is to be 
made with the bistoury, one must carefully weigh the possibility of com- 
plications following the interference. Serious and even fatal accidents 
may occur from bloody exeresis of a benign and painless neoplasm which 
did not trouble the patient and might never have caused serious incon- 
venience. Should there be an oversight in the operation, septicaemia may 
occur from the wound made by the removal of an old neoplasm, whose 
slow growth as well as clinical manifestations positively indicated its 
benignity. Therefore, for these tumors, abstention ought to be the general 
rule. Let us remark, however, that tumors which may have remained 
benign for a long time, may at a given time rapidly enlarge and spread ; 
as soon as this transformation takes place, they evidently return to the 
category of the malignant tumors and must be treated as such. Pedun- 
culated tumors of mucous membranes easily explored (nose, rectum, 
vagina) should be removed with the ecraseur or torn off with the fingers. 
‘During the last few years, the prophylaxis of cancer has been much 
talked about; but we have seen that, aside from heredity, there are no 
positive etiological data to admit it. It has been believed that cancer is 
more common in man since meat has entered in a greater proportion 
into general alimentation ; hence the advice to eat less meat and a greater 
proportion of vegetables—a piece of advice which could be put in practice 
with dogs and cats if facts justified it. The relative frequency of can- 
cerous growths among subjects affected with arthritis has suggested the 
use of arsenical or alkaline substances, either as therapeutic agents of the 
“neoplastic diathesis” or as prophylactic medication of carcinosis. Up 
to the present time nothing proves the real efficacy of these means. 
At all times the cure of malignant tumors has been tried by the use of 
a great variety of applications and by a no less varied assortment of in- 
ternal medications. Chlorate of potassium in powder or in saturated solu- 
tion seems to be effective against some epithelial growths; some results 
have been obtained in cases of cancroids of the skin or the tegument of 
natural openings, but they fail with the epithelial growth of mucous mem- 
branes. If papillomas of the mouth in dogs and the growth of the lip of 
the cat, improperly called “cancroid,” do ordinarily submit to the action 
of chlorate of potash, it is known that those growths are exceptions to the 
general law of the persistency of neoplasms ; after a variable length of time 
almost always the ulceration of the cat’s lip stops in its growth and heals; 
in the same manner the warts of the buccal mucous membrane of dogs 
shrink and disappear; it is rarely necessary to treat them actively. 
Against the ulcerated epithelial tumors of the lips, aniline colors can be 
