Foreign Letters

LONDON  (From Our Regular Correspondent)Oct. 2, 1937.

Differential Diagnosis of Mediastinal Tumors  At the Royal Society of Medicine, Dr. N. L. Rusby discussed the differential diagnosis of mediastinal tumors. He pointed out that the history of the patient was important in distinguishing a tumor of the mediastinum. A history of specific disease years previously may engender great caution in diagnosing tumor rather than aneurysm of the aorta. The history of intimate contact with a phthisical parent may in a seedy looking child suggest tuberculous mediastinal lymphadenitis as the cause of a dry, hacking cough, rather than Hodgkin's disease or lymphosarcoma of the thymus. Benign tumors of the mediastinum may cause no symptoms whatever. At the end of the last century, before the advent of x-rays, they were commonly found during the routine necropsy, while today they are sometimes revealed by the roentgenogram taken to exclude phthisis in a tuberculous