Contributions to the Physiology and Pathology of the Breast and Its Lymphatic Glands (Paperback)

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. 1878. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VII. PATHOLOGICAL PROCESSES OF THE BREAST--continued. In attempting to refer to their physiological type the pathological processes last discussed, I was under the disadvantage of having for the normal standard a period of the evolution of the breast that is itself difficult to explain. I pointed out in the second chapter that the earliest evolutional changes in the breast could be followed without difficulty, owing to the pigmentation of the cellular products that characterise them; and that the latest changes were intelligible, inasmuch as the vacuolated cells within the acini differed from the colostrum or milk-containing cells only in the circumstance that their vacuoles were filled with mucus. The large yellow granular cells are products of the secretion so well marked in every way that their occurrence, both in healthy and in morbid states, may be safely taken to support even the novel pathological doctrine that has been stated. Hardly less reliable in the pathological application are the phenomena of the breast in the immature period which is characterised by the production of mucus. A considerable proportion of the tumour cases in the bitch have their physiological type in that condition of the organ and in that intensity of the function. The physiological type is that of the later period of the evolution, in which the function comes near in its intensity to the perfect lactation. But there is every reason to think that the morbid process, even when its prevalent characters are those of advanced evolution, has started from a resting condition of the breast, and has advanced in the usual way through the earlier stages to the later. In the tumour cases about to be described, the glandular tissue round the centres of disease is for the most p...