Abstract
MR. MANSELL MOULLIN has published as a booklet the Bradshaw lecture which he recently delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons. It treats of new growths or tumours from the biological point of view; he regards the division of-them into malignant and innocent as a mere useful convention; there is no sharp line of demarcation between the two groups. He prefers a division into those which spring from germ-cells and possess a more or less complete individuality, and those which spring from somatic cells and are due to escape from control of what remains to them of their primitive form of growth. The short course of an hour's lecture precluded any full treatment of this large subject. The various theories of malignancy are not discussed, but the parasitic nature of cancer is denied. With regard to cure, we have the confession that at present the surgeon's knife is the only safe remedy, though the lecture concludes with the hope that this will not always be so. No reference is made to the part chemistry has played or will play in the elucidation of the cancer problem. Until we know what are the biochemical or metabolic actions in the cells of a new growth, we can scarcely hope to grapple with the methods which will ensure recovery.
The Bradshaw Lecture on the Biology of Tumours.
By C. Mansell Moullin. Pp. 39. (London: H. K. Lewis, 1913.) Price 2s. net.
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H., W. The Bradshaw Lecture on the Biology of Tumours . Nature 91, 84 (1913). https://doi.org/10.1038/091084a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/091084a0