E. G. L.
SYPHILIS AND CANCER. Etcheverry. (Ann. de Derm. et de Syph., August-September, 1904, p. 797.)
This research was undertaken in Audry’s Clinique at Toulouse, and the consideration of the connection between these two diseases was directed to the occurrence of lesions on the tongue and buccal mucous membrane. These facts are grouped in three classes, according as: (1) cancer supervened, in syphilitic patients, upon a preceding leucoplakia; (2) without leucoplakia, but in the presence of other local syphilitic lesions, such as gummata, scars of gummata, or of hard chancres; and (3) in the absence of all local signs of syphilis. Thirteen cases of epithelioma developing upon syphilitic leucoplakia are detailed under the first heading. This sequel is relatively frequent. In the second group twenty-two cases are noted. In the third group no direct transformation of syphilitic into epitheliomatous lesions could be established, but the fact of previous syphilis was ascertained in all the fifteen cases quoted. Etcheverry, struck with the singular frequency of association of the two diseases, speculates whether there may not be some direct predisposition in syphilitic patients, as such, to develop cancer. In epithelioma of relatively young patients he states that syphilis may almost always be found as a previous accident. The greater frequency of cancer of the mouth in men than in women coincides with the greater frequency of syphilis in men; according to Fournier, syphilis is eight times more common in males. Etcheverry hazards the suggestion that the cachexia produced by syphilis may be a directly provocative cause of ensuing cancer. As regards the treatment of these mixed cases of syphilis and cancer, the administration of mercury, preferably by injections of calomel, influences favourably the syphilitic element of the disease, and occasionally, as a temporary effort, the epitheliomatous development is checked by this drug. On the other hand, iodides are distinctly mischievous to the malignant growth, and should not be given.
It is probable that the same close connections obtain between cancer and syphilis of the rectum as has been here noted in the case of the mouth, but observations on this point are too few to be of value.
A very full bibliography is added to this careful paper.
E. G. L.
ON ADENOMA SEBACEUM. Buschke. (Derm. Zeitschr., Bd. xi., Heft 7, p. 467.)
The patient was a boy, aged 13 years, in whom the eruption of small tumours had occurred at the age of five, coming out suddenly after an attack of measles. The distribution and appearance of the single lesions on the face was of the characteristic type of reddish-brown nodules situated on the nose and contiguous portions of the cheeks. He had also numerous fibromata on the back, and a widespread eruption of small, pale yellow, seed-like tumours all over the back, the little tumours resembling milium, and on close examination appearing to be pierced by lanugo hairs. A histological examination of all classes of tumour showed them to be either pure fibromata or angio-fibromata, though Buschke admits that in the case of the face tumours the excision was so superficial that it is possible that deep sebaceous glands might be present below the point at which the excision took place. The boy was clever at work, and generally showed no physical or mental defect other than the presence of the cutaneous anomaly.
A. W.
ON THE PATHOGENESIS OF COLLIQUATIVE BULLÆ. Kreibich. (Derm. Zeitschr., Bd. xi, Heft 5, p. 315.)