The Transactions of the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh (Volume 21)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902. Excerpt: ... observers. He maintains that the tumours always originate in the bones of the head and face, and that the growths in other organs are secondary and originate by metastasis. Recklinghausen (9) in 1883 pointed out that the tumours found in cases of chloroma differed in many respects from periosteal sarcomas, chiefly in their deficiency of bone formation and in their development from the outer layer of the periosteum. He insists upon the intimate relationship which exists between this affection and leukaemia. He demonstrated that the structure of all the tumours in his case was of a pure lymphomatous character, and in this belief he is supported by Horing Dock (10) and Chiari(11) and several other writers, with the result that the growths are now pretty generally regarded as belonging to the class of tumours known as lympho-sarcomas. Lympho-sarcoma is probably the best definition of the growths found in chloroma resembling on the one hand lymphonas in their histological structure and sarcomas in the fact that they arise from the periosteum and that they spread by metastasis. Recently the view has been advanced by Cordua and Ricker that a very close relationship exists between lympho-sarcomas and tuberculosis. Colour.--Regarding the cause of the colour of the tumours, which varies from a yellowish green to a bright grass-green, considerable diversity of opinion has prevailed, and the question is by no means satisfactorily settled yet. Balfour thought the colour was due to bile pigment, but no trace of bile has ever been discovered in any of the tumours examined. Dittrich (12) supposed that the colour was the result of decomposition, but this theory is quite untenable, as the green colour is confined to the tumour growths, the other tissues of the body remaini...