We make this extract in order to show how modern science is finally completed o pay tribute to the true spiritual doctrine, rather than to the more gross and external theory which it had before received as a regulation from nature. The distinction of cancerous from other cells as a matter of external form, is not longer deemed reliable; the form being, at least as often as otherwise, homologous to the natural and healthy cell-forms. the rue distinction to which all must finally come is, that as the cancer cell is itself the result of a morbid deviation, so it tends o perpetuate the same morbid influence implant within it. it is a homologous growth as to form and no less truly homologous in its vital activity, in perpetuating its own disordered vitality,-exactly as if a ball projected into space in a curved line and meeting to obstruction would complete and continue on in the original circle. Thus all the elements of cancer are positively homologous-that is similar formations to other and healthy the proportions in which they are combined to form a cancerous growth. In like manner different chemicals may be harmless or ingredients are arranged;-o as in. the case of those called isomeric, according to the different manner in which the same ingredients are arranged even in exactly the same proportions.
The scirrhous and encephaloid forms are the most common cancerous growths in the uterus;-the former occurring much more frequently than the alter. Where the cancerous disease appear as a primary affection the womb, it occurs in the form of cancerous the uterus as own extension from some other organs, the secondary cancerous deposits which result, are known by the name of sub peritoneal cancers.
The progressive nature of its development forms another important characteristic feature of the cancer. All the different forms of cancer may sometimes be seen in a single case, in its successive stags; they appear to pass into and succeed each other; the indurated forms becoming softer, -but the soft never, so far as we are aware, becoming hard. The development may be slow, it may occupy years; an for a season appear entirely stationary; although this is scarcely ever the case in. cancer of the uterus. Here the disease being usually found to seize primarily upon the vaginal portion of the cervix, the alteration of the tissue will extend from the so tineae to the so internum, and from thence it will gradually extend over the interior surface of the fundus. At the same time the softening and other degenerations of tissue extend from within outward. But he progress of this fearful disease is not confined to the uterus alone. From the intimate connection of this organ, through its peritoneal covering, with the bladder, the rectum and peritoneum, and directly with the Fallopian tubes and ovaries, the cancerous affection’s in due time communicated successively and in different degree to all these organs and even to the peritoneum itself. In addition to the other and incidental sufferings which must follow such extension, the cancerous ulceration sometimes occasions vesico-vaginal and recto-vaginal fistulas, accidents which very greatly aggravate the pitiable condition of the patient. From the nature of he disease itself as possessing an essentially progressive character, it cannot but go on extending its ravages nd increasing its tortures, unless arrested in its course by medical skull, until death closes the scene. For as there are forms of disease which are self-limited in their course extent and duration, so this one of cancer (so named by the unfitness from its large surrounding veins and general resemblance to the body and claws of a crab) is just the opposite-It seizes upon tissue after tissue and organ after organ, hardening, softening, wasting away all within its reach, till the exhausted system can endure no more.
The intensity of the pain forms another and characteristic feature of cancer. This is s sharp, lancinating or stabbing pain. It is similar to that which occurs in felon or whitlow; and it is no less acute- “It is not constant or the patient could not live; but comes at uncertain intervals, and is so startling as well as severe that it makes the sufferer bound from her chair or couch, not infrequently with a sharp cry of anguish. It is as though a dagger had been thrust into the tumor. This pain comes in paroxysms of varying duration, which are accompanied by an increased activity of the circulation,-a turgescence of he enlarged veins which lead out from the cancer; and the paroxysm may often subside by a more or less profuse hemorrhage which seems to relieve the pain.-Hence these paroxysms may be regarded as periodic (or irregular) aggravations or acute attacks, superadded to the constant chronic inflammation.
These intense stabbing pains afford an almost infallible diagnostic indication; especially when they thus recur in paroxysms. Such pains appear only (except in the case of felon already mentioned where there could be no danger of mistake) in. cancer, and in cute inflammation of the mammary gland But in the latter cases the two exciting causes which lead to mammary abscess, -lactation, or mechanical violent,-will suffice to prevent the pains which attend such conditions from being mistaken for cancerous. And besides in. these cases of abscess. the pains come on much more rapidly, as in fact does the whole inflammation.
The remarkable tendency to a a fatal termination can never be overlooked in the consideration of cancer. In cancer of the breast and other exposed parts of the body, the mischief may be apprehended and effectual means taken by the exhibition of the appropriate Homoeopathic remedies, of arrest its progress before it has too deeply seized upon the system. But cancer of the uterus may become every firmly established before its presence is even suspected. Hence the invariably fatal termination of this form of cancer, according to Allopathic authorities. Originating, as we have already shown in a constitutional dyscrasia, by its presence, derangement of the proper functions of the organ upon which it seizes and by the serious injury inflicted upon the system by the severity of it pain,-it tends to reduce the vital strength, and thus render it more difficult to establish in the system a vital reaction of sufficient energy to throw off the incubus. And this physical depressing influence is greatly increased by the moral influence which the knowledge of the terrible nature of her disease must exert upon the patient herself.
THE CAUSES OF CANCER-These are either primary, predisposing, hereditary, constitutional influences;l or secondary, e exciting provoking causes. Of the former we have already said all that was necessary. Of the latter, we make brief mention here.
And in the first place it should be remarried, in this condition, that nearly if not quite all he secondary or provoking cause of cancer in. the female,-with which alone we have to do in the present work,-are directly or indirectly connected with her sexual system. Cancers of the womb and of the breast, which form the great majority of all that attack women, are evidently thus directly related. While those which, however rarely, occur in other parts either remote from the sexual organs or not in immediate physiological relation to them may be seen to result from general depressing influences which, as in the case of widowhood or even of these who remain unmarried, have at least an indirect relation to the sexual condition.
And in this connection it is interesting to observe the condition in life of a number of cases. Of one hundred and eight cases recorded by Scanzoni, ninety-one were married, seventeen were maidens; thirty six were sterile; seventy-two had had several labors.
Excessive sexual excitation and immoderate coition form the prominent and real causes of cancer of the womb. In connection with thus it must be remembered that constitutional predisposition plays a most important part. the insatiable desire known to be present in some of these cases, which is of course the immediate cause of such sexual the excesses is itself a constitutional condition, existing before it develops itself in. this voluptuous orgasm of the sexual apparatus.
In like manner disorder of the menstrual function with leucorrhoea, which, by the author already preferred to, are set down as the provoking causes of one-half of his cancer cases, must be deemed to be dependent upon or, connected with a true cancerous dyscrasia,. Otherwise why have not the same disorders resulted in cancer in the thousands of other females who have suffered with them for years?
The same thing again is true of the cases of cancer which are developed under the influence of “emotions of grief, fretfulness, the cares of life, affliction after some bereavement, etc. All these powerful depressing influences are capable of developing cancer only in those females in whose systems are implanted the seeds of a true cancerous dyscrasia, or one which may be interchangeable with it, complementary to it.
