DOI: 10.7925/drs1.ucdlib_280477
title: Cancer of the femur & cranium

description: Watercolour medical illustrations depicting cancer of the cranium and femur. It has the alternative reference number 1394, 18.c and P10 on the front. The Richmond Hospital Museum reference is C.a.38. The entry for this in P263/1 pg. 20 reads 'Cancer of the cranium & femur. Mary Tallon aet 46. Mr Adams'. The artist's name is in the bottom right corner 'J. Connolly Del.t' and in the left corner 'Case of Mary Tallon Aet.46'. The handwritten and typescript note on the back begins 'Cancer of the femur & cranium'.
description: Scope and content: The full handwritten and typescript note on the back reads 'Cancer of the femur & cranium. The specimens were taken from the body of a woman who had been admitted into Jervis-street Hospital, two years ago, suffering under cancer of the left breast. The gland was hard, and the ulcer itself, which was near the nipple, and of small dimensions, was very indolent. The skin covering the breast was rough and nodulated: as operation was not considered advisable, she was discharged. The same patient was lately admitted into the North Union Poorhouse, greatly altered in appearance. She was emaciated, and evidently suffering under cancerous hectic. The left breast had diminished in size; it was not painful, and was of a stony hardness. The right was scirrhous. There were severe pains in the limbs, hips, and back. The right thigh broke while she was moving in bed; the hectic proceeded; epileptic fits supervened, and then death ensued. When the body was examined, both the breasts were found to be scirrhous. The left was more dense and firm than usual, and no fluid or cancerous juice (as it has been called) could be expressed from it. The right was enlarged, and contained fluid. Cancerous tubercles existed in the liver. In the osseous system cancerous matter was found in the femur and skull, the inner table of which always suffers the most from cancerous deposition in the diploe. Having demonstrated the several lesions, Mr Smith observed, that there are two forms of the cancer of the bones, one consisting of circumscribed tubercles, the other of infiltration, which may be into the compact structure as well as into the medullary tissue. Cruveilhier had remarked, that the atrophic cancer of the breast was almost confined to the aged, to persons between fifty and eighty. This remark Mr Smith could confirm from his own observations. In this description of cancer it was, that the internal organs and the bones were most usually affected. The cancerous matter was probably deposited in the veins, and venous capillaries, of which there was an instance in a case of uterine cancer delineated by Cruveilhier. In uterine cancer the bones had not been found affected. These cancerous affections had been represented in the plates of Cruveilhier, whose accurate observation nothing could escape. When a bone is infiltrated with cancerous matter, large perforations are not made in it. The compact structure is merely thinned by absorption, and then the bone may break from a very slight cause. (Museum, Richmond Hospital)'.
description: Numbering/sequence: Original reference number: 1394.
description: Date details: This illustration is undated, approximate dates are given based on dates for the entire collection.