Abstract
The attempt to compare animal cancer and plant overgrowths must involve a cytological study of their respective tissues. For animal cancer three cases of epithelioma were mainly studied together with several cases of breast and rectal carcinoma and spindle cell sarcoma. Of the plant cancers, crown gall was the chief subject of my study, while the hyperplastic tissue of the potato wart was also used.
The cytology of human cancer has been much studied. The existence of multipolar spindles has been described by many workers on animal cancers. I find that nuclei with innumerable chromosomes cannot be due only to unequal distribution of the chromosomes on the spindle, in division. From my preparations of animal cancer a more plausible interpretation leads to the conclusion that these hyperchromatic cells arise from large multinucleate cells and from cells with two or more lobulate nuclei. The nuclei in these cells with their centrosomes undergo simultaneous division; their nuclear membranes disappear and we thus get the appearance of multipolar spindles.
Lobulate nuclei in cancerous tissue are not evidence of the existence of amitotic division. The lobulate nucleus indicates rather a high metabolic activity of these cells similar to that found in actively growing tissues of animals.
The monaster stages recorded by von Hansernann and others are rare in my preparations and those that occur are suggestive in appearance of a section through a dividing cell in which the chromosomes have not reached the poles nor have the centrosomes disappeared, yet the constriction for cell division has been almost completed.
Hyperplastic cells are found in crown galls and potato wart. Binucleate and quadrinucleate cells appear in crown gall tissue. No multipolar spindles have been found in my preparations.
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