DOI: 10.7925/drs1.ucdlib_280283
title: Cancer of the stomach

description: Watercolour medical illustration depicting cancer of the stomach. It has the alternative reference number 1358 and P3A on the front. The Richmond Hospital Museum reference is B.b.48. The entry for this in P263/1 pg. 14 reads 'Cancer of stomach. Margaret Leonard'. The artist's name is in the bottom right corner 'J. Connolly fec.t' and 'Case of Marg.t Leonard aet 26' in the left corner. The typescript note on the back begins 'Cancer of the Stomach'.
description: Scope and content: The full typescript note on the back reads 'Cancer of the Stomach – Dr McDowell exhibited a remarkable specimen of encephaloid disease, affecting the pyloric extremity of the stomach. There had been no symptoms, during life, leading to the suspicion that so formidable a disease existed. The patient, a female, aged 26 years, was admitted into the Whitworth Hospital about six weeks before her death, in a state of extreme debility. She had borne four children within a short period, and nursed them all. Only one of them survived. Dr McDowell, on enquiring into her history, was led to believe that she was suffering merely from the debility which often attends too frequent pregnancy. Dr Banks, under whose care she had been some time previously, had arrived at the same conclusion. She was anxious for nourishment, and was placed on the full diet of the hospital, which seemed to agree with her. The case was treated as one of purely functional derangement, there not appearing to be any reason to suspect the presence of organic disease. After some time she seemed to improve, and expressed herself relieved, to a great extent, of the languor and weakness she had before complained of; but ten days before her death she began to suffer from uneasiness in the lower part of the abdomen, which was swollen below the umbilicus. However, she scarcely complained, and took her food as usual; but on two or three occasions vomited some fluid from the stomach. About four days ago, while stooping to draw on her stocking, she fell forward, and was taken up insensible. She died in five or six minutes afterwards, and it was very difficult to say to what cause her death was to be ascribed. The lungs were found to be quite healthy; the liver, somewhat enlarged, presented slight indications of fatty degeneration; there was no sign of inflammatory action in the abdomen; and the heart and brain presented no abnormal appearances. The stomach was the only viscus found to be diseased; there was great thickening of its pyloric portion, and, upon laying it open, a large mass of encephaloid disease was found, forming a tumour of a circular form, softened in the centre, and infiltrated with a white creamy fluid. Mr McDowell observed that the points of interest connected with the case were, the occurrence of cancer of the stomach at the early age of twenty-six years, and the absence of any symptoms, during life, that could lead to the supposition of its existence. In 1840 the late Professor Graves had brought under the notice of the Society a specimen of encephaloid disease of the stomach, extending from the oesophagus to the pylorus, taken from the body of a man not more than twenty-five years of age. In Dr Graves' case the disease had also engaged the folds of the gastro-hepatic omentum, forming an enormous mass, which by pressing on the biliary ducts, had given rise to jaundice. December 5, 1863'. The feint handwritten note in the bottom right corner reads 'Dr McDowell Winter 1863. Robt Andrews [?] Clerks'.
description: Numbering/sequence: Original reference number: 1358.