DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES.
PLATE I
Represents the fibro-cancerous lung in Case IV, described at p. 36 et seq.
The lung has been cut through longitudmally to show the reticulated aspect given by the fibro-scirrhous deposit along the course of the tubes and inter-cellular spaces. The whitish-gray spots, resembling at first sight tubercle, but which are merely the cut ends of the smaller tubes, are also distinctly shown. The microscopic appearances of the morbid growth are depicted in the woodcut, p. 46. It may, however, be well to state that theaccount there given has been confirmed by the report of the Committee of the Pathological Society appointed to examine the recent specimen.
The reporters, Drs. Bristowe and Pick, say: “Our ex- amination of the lungs, shown to the Society by Dr. Risdon Bennett, confirms the account which he has furnished of them. The bronchial tubes and pulmonary vessels almost to their smallest ramifications are imbedded in a greater or less abundance of dense white fibrous-looking material; which is, therefore, so arranged that on section of the organs the tissue seems mapped out by it into irregular polygonal spaces.
"Under the microscope the adventitious formation is seen to be made up mainly of cells, rounded or polygonal, and for the most part about the size of the cells of the bronchial mucus. These are for the most part collected in the meshes of a fibrous matrix. In some parts the fibrous tissue is predominant; in other parts the cells preponderate, and in places seem to be. grouped in loculi of various sizes. We believe that these latter are neither air-cells nor bronchial passages, but the cells of the morbid growth are so like those of the bronchial mucus that it is difficult to be absolutely certain on that point. We distinctly observed (as is described in Dr. Bennett’s report) that the cell-growth extended from the seats of its chief development into the tissues separating adjoining air-cells from each other, where it formed rounded excrescences projecting into the cavities of the air-cells, but separated from them by their limiting membrane.
“There can be no doubt that the discase was of a malignant character, and little doubt that the growth in the lungs was secondary to that which had existed in the breast.”
