THE INJURY TO CANCER PATIENTS OF SECURING SPECIMENS PRIOR TO OPERATION

To the Editor:  —The practice of securing specimens for microscopic examination from suspected malignancies prior to operative or other radical treatment has often been denounced. The consequences of this practice can be readily appreciated by a moment's reflection. The lymphatics are active and the vessels enlarged in the neighborhood of cancerous growths, and the cellular tissue about the mass is both hyperemic and edematous, ready to take up, harbor and transport fluids carried to them. It needs only a puncture, an abrasion, a bruise or a pinching of the growth to carry from it to its immediate environment the morbid agencies therein generated—causative factors of its malignancy. Much more mischief is done if an actual incision is made into the mass. It is an error to suppose that by employing a cautery for the removal of such fragment, however small, danger is avoided. If a dull red knife is used,