Page:A treatise on diseases of the bones (electronic resource) (IA b21289013).pdf/289

 CHAPTER IV.

HARD CARCINOMA, AND MELANOSIS IN BONE,

HARD CARCINOMA IN BONE,

THERE are instances of a deposit in bone identical with the hard cancer in the female breast.

T know of no instance of hard cancer in bone, where it occurred as a primary disease; and I know of no case where the primary cancer was situated elsewhere than in the mammary gland, and I should have added of the female, but for the remarkable case presently to be related, where the primary cancer occurred in the mam- mary gland of the male.

The carcinomatous deposit has been found in bones of various forms; in the medullary tissue of long bones, and in the cancellous texture of flat, and other-shaped bones. In the instances which I have seen, there did not appear to have been any change of structure in the bone, pre- ceding the deposit of the carcinomatous substance. This deposit takes place in the form of minute, round granules, which, as they increase, coalesce into a solid firm mass, of a light greyish-blue color, apparently homogeneous in its composition, without intersecting fibrous bands, and, of �