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The views in this work are in aquatinta, and unite force with elegance.

ART. XII.-Observations on the Cancerous Breast, consisting chiefly of original Correspondence between the Author and Dr. Baillie, Mr. Cline, Dr. Babington, Mr. Abernethy, and Dr. Stokes. Published by Permission of the Writers. With an introductory Letter to Mr. Pitcairn. By Joseph Adams, M. D. &c.: 8vo. 3s. 6d, sewed. Longman and Rees. 1801.

WE have often had occasion to remark that even the errors of authors may be useful, if distinguished by a bold originality, which starts from vulgar rules, and leads to untrodden paths. We mean not by this remark to insinuate that Dr. Adams's opinions are erroneous, but that he has left the beaten track;-with what success, time must determine.

The cause of cancers has eluded the penetration of patholo gists; and, when we have considered them with most attention, we have found something so distant from common appearances, so unlike the changes which take place in any other circumstances in the animal economy, and so little connected with the effects of those causes whose operation we can perceive, that we have despaired of being able to elucidate the origin of the disease, or to mitigate it. Dr. Adams has attempted the former with some appearance of success; and the means of relief may perhaps follow. In the present work, nevertheless, the remedies are not greatly improved.

We find some difficulty in putting together the mangled limbs of his system, so disjointed, and scattered in different letters. We shall, however, first transcribe a, clear comprehensive account of scirrhous tumors, from Dr. Baillie's letter.

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In parts which have become scirrhous, I have commonly observed the structure to consist of a very firm light brown substance, intersected by membranous or ligamentous septa, which run in various directions. The membranous septa are more numerous, and of greater thickness in some cases than in others. There is occasionally mixed with this structure a cartilaginous substance. The whole structure I have sometimes known to be cartilaginous, resembling very much a piece of common cartilage which had been previously rendered soft by being steeped for some time in a dissolving fluid,

Ulcers are often formed in scirrhous structures, and fungous excrescences occasionally grow from them. Cysts containing a kind of serous fluid are sometimes found in scirrhous structure; but they seem to me frequently wanting, They occur, I believe, most commonly in the breast and testicle, and these glands in a scirrhous state I have had few opportunities of examining. From what I have .observed, I should be inclined to believe, that cysts are only some

times formed in a scirrhous structure, but are not essential to it. In this, however, I may be mistaken; and it may be found by a more minute observation, that the formation of cysts always constitutes a part of a scirrhous structure. If you should be able to establish this or any other general observation about the nature of scirrhus, it will give me very real satisfaction.

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I have known a substance which possessed the common characters of scirrhous structure to be converted into a kind of bony matter. In this, I believe, that the earthy part will be generally found to be in a larger proportion to the animal part than in common bone. Muscular and membranous parts I have known to be affected with scirrhus, as well as those which are strictly glandular. A fatty mem brane I have seen affected with the same disease. The fat was almost as hard as a piece of gristle.' P. 32.

Our author, who has prefixed Mr. Hunter's paper on hydatids, from the Transactions for improving Medical and Chirurgical Knowledge, supposes that cancers arise from a species of this animal. Living animals in the body do not excite suppuration; but, when they die, they act like any other extraneous matter. If a cancer be a collection of hydatids, the external ones dying, perhaps from pressure, excite suppuration, which is of course slow till all the tunics are separated; while nature, to preserve those still alive and more deeply seated, produces the fungous substance so constantly observed in cancerous tumors. Thus a comparatively quiet state continues till the neighbouring ones die; and the succession of new animals is continued in the deeper parts, to be in turn destroyed and thrown off by suppuration, till the repeated discharge sinks the unhappy sufferer, In this way our author supposes the appella tion of cancer to be derived, from its going backward. This system is supported by the appearance of cancerous tumors recently extirpated; and we think we could add some striking pathological arguments in its support.

Unless we were together,' says our author to Mr. Cline, it would be difficult exactly to comprehend each other's meaning; but as you seem to confound cavities with cysts, there must have been some inaccuracy in my language.

The more obvious cavities are of three kinds. The first is, I conceive, the common hydatid; and, as the amputated part has usually been soaked in water before it is examined, when a section is made through this cyst, its contents escape almost unobserved, the cyst still retaining its figure on account of the cartilaginous nature either of its tunic or the fungus in which it is imbedded. This therefore has the appearance of an empty cavity; but is, as your greater accuracy describes, "cells filled with serum.

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Another kind of cavity is often filled with a gelatinous substance of different consistence in different cavities, and often in the same. These appear to me carcinomatous hydatids that have gone through their different stages of birth, growth, and decay, and are retained

in the inclosing fungus, till either an operation or the gradual ulceration or sloughing of the fungus exposes them.

The third kind of cavity, which shows itself without a very close examination, consists of cells filled with a dark bloody fluid, and which I take the liberty of calling hydatis cruenta. They are usually inclosed in a much looser and more sanguiferous fungus than either the lymphatic or carcinomatous hydatid." P. 55.

We find a distinction between common and carcinomatous hydatids; but, whether by the former Dr. Adams means the bloody hydatid, we cannot determine. There is, however, a scirrhosity, which sometimes affects the testicle, and occasionally the lip, the appearance of which is granulated; and in the centre a kind of imperfect suppuration takes place. This the author, we suspect, confounds with steatoma, or considers it to be of the same nature. The steatoma, though apparently without life, or a circulating system, seems, in his opinion, to be capable of strong attachment, and separable only by long continued suppuration. The author's observations respecting the distinction between what we may venture to call steatomatous and carcinomatous hydatids, we shall transcribe from his letter to Mr. Abernethy.

• You will recollect that as the separate existence of the common hydatid was not my discovery, so I have not presumed to say any thing in its defence: and as Dr. Baillie has given his definition of life attached to the most simple form of organisation, I have thought it sufficient to show that all the properties he requires, including motion, are discoverable in the fatty cells of the carcinomatous breast. Hence, though there is certainly a strong analogy between carcinoma, as I have described it, and steatoma, yet there is also a most important difference. Muscular contraction may be traced in the tunics of carcinomata by the elevation of their contents into a papillary form. This is not the case with steatoma. There are other differences to be stated hereafter; but as motion is considered the strongest proof of life, this is enough to show, that as the proofs of the vitality of carcinoma are not supported by, so they are not to fall on account of any analogy, however strong, between that and steatoma.' P. 72.

Thus without further preface I am free to acknowledge that not only steatoma, but atheroma and meliceris, as they have been called since the days of the Greek physicians, that is all encysted tumours, whose cyst and contents have no communicating branches with the surrounding blood-vessels, appear to me animalcular, or at least to have the same economy as has been admitted in hydatis lymphatica. That this is the case I conceive:

First, Because they are all found in the same parts of the body, and often in the same individual tumour.

Secondly, Because they are all free from any communicating branches in the surrounding blood-vessels.

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Thirdly, Because they all appear to have a power of growth, after which they die without otherwise affecting the body in which they existed, but by their local stimulus.

Fourthly, Because the cyst containing either of them is incapa ble of suppuration, and subject to none of those laws, by which capsules formed to prevent the diffusion of matter in absæsi, or suppuration, or original tunics when preternaturally distended with fluid, are governed.

Fifthly, Because a similar mode of multiplication may be traced in each.'

P. 74.

The proper nidus for hydatids are those parts which retain their life, and are not necessary for the support of the machine; as the mammæ, after the period of menstruation is over; the ovaria after the same time, &c. A blow, which destroys the action of the former, adapts it, in our author's opinion, for the production of hydatids.

With respect to remedies, we do not perceive much advantage gained by this system. Arsenic, Dr. Adams thinks, succeeds chiefly in steatomas. He believes hemlock to have been sometimes useful; and that Mr. Hill's singular success in the operation was from the greater number of his cases having been cancers of the lip, which he thinks more insulated than other scirrhi. Cancers, slow in their progress, are more successfully treated, either by the knife, or by internal remedies, than rapid ones.

Such is the outline of Dr. Adams's doctrine, -too much broken, as we have remarked, by the epistolary form, and the different persons addressed. In his new edition of Morbid Poisons,' we trust he will bring it more successfully together; and we may then hazard some remarks on it. At present, however fanciful in appearance, we own it strikes us as proba ble, and explains many circumstances relative to cancers, his therto unintelligible.

ART. XIII.-Figures of Mosaic Pavements discovered at Horkstow in Lincolnshire. Imperial Quarto. 31. 35. Boards. White,

1801.

THIS beautiful publication is introduced by the following

advertisement.

The plates of Mosaic pavements discovered at Horkstow, here offered to the public, are the beginning of a work, in which it is proposed to exhibit figures of the most remarkable Roman antiquities discovered in Great-Britain, under the title of Reliquia Romana, to be published in separate parts, four of which will make a volume. With the fourth part will be given a general title-page and table of

contents.

The second part, which is in a state of great forwardness, will consist of fourteen plates, representing the remains of temples, inscriptions, and other Roman antiquities, discovered at Bath.

The third part will contain ten plates, representing several Mosaic pavements, discovered near Frampton in Dorsetshire, coloured after the originals.

Of a work of this kind, it is impossible to ascertain the extent, as that must in a great measure depend on future discoveries.

The antiquities which have not hitherto been engraved will be given first, but it is also intended to introduce the most curious of those which have been published before.

• Inner Temple, June 1, 1801,"

༞ ་་

SAMUEL LYSONS.

Then follows the list of plates, in number seven, all coloured with extreme accuracy and elegance. The description of the plates alone, occupying four pages of letter-press, we are induced to transcribe, as affording the best account of the subjects represented.

• PLATE I-Represents a view taken from Horkstow-hall in Lincolnshire, the seat of the honourable admiral Shirley. In the distance are seen the river Humber, and the Yorkshire coast opposite Wintringham and Ferriby sluice.

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The foreground shows the situation of a Mosaic pavement, accidentally discovered in the year 1796, in a close adjoining to the garden of Horkstow-hall, by labourers employed in making a kitchen garden: it lay at the depth of about three feet below the surface of the ground. Roman coins had been found several years before near the same spot.

PLATE IL-A map showing the situation of the several Roman remains in the neighbourhood of Horkstow. The great Roman road called the High-street, or Old-street, leading from Lincoln to the Humber, passes within four miles of this place. Several Mosaic pavements and other antiquities have been found at Winterton and Roxby, each about four miles from Horkstow-hall.

• Considerable Roman remains have also been discovered at Broughton, about eight miles from the same place, and at Hibaldstow, four miles further. One of these last-mentioned places is supposed, by Horsley, to have been the station Prætorium in the first iter of Antonine's Itinerary. Roman pottery and coins have been found at, Santon. Yarborough camp, where Stukeley says that vast quantities of Roman coins have been found, is eight miles from Horkstow,

The village of Horkstow is pleasantly situated under a range of hills which, for the space of several miles, form the eastern boundary of the flat country, through which the river Ankholm runs at the distance of about a mile and a half south of the river Humber.

The plan, fig. 2, at the corner of the map, shows the situation of the Mosaic pavements. At B was the larger pavement, the three

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