FIBROMA.
Fibrous Growths appear naturally to affect the spherical form : they may, however, be accidentally flattened (as in the walls of the uterus, during the advance of pregnancy, Univ. Coll. Mus.) ; pedunculated (see p. 122) under the mucous membrane of the nose and uterus ; or nodulated from having two or more centres of development. They may be smaller than a pea (in the dura-mater for instance); or, especially when developed under the peri toneal coat of the uterus, exceed the head of an adult in size : tumours of this kind have been known to weigh 25, 30, 35, and 39 pounds. Their external surface is naturally smooth and even ; loose filaments of cellulo vascular tissue form their common material of union with adjoining textures ; in some cases the connection is rendered unusually intimate by exudation-matter. (See p. 125.) On section the colour of these grow. ths is generally found to be greyish- wh ite,—the grey ish colour being that of the intrastromal matter, the white (which may be dull or glisteninc) that of the stromal. Less commonly fibroma has a reddish hue. The consistence of the mass varies with its colour : the greater the white ness, the greater the density, specific gravity and tenacity of the tumour ; the reddish coloured growth is comparatively soft and yielding.
The constituents of fibrous tumours visible with the naked eye, are white bands ; a ma terial interposed between them of darker colour, less opaque, less dense, and less manifestly fibrous ; and, in comparatively rare cases, vessels,— congregated in the main to wards the periphery of the mass. The arrange ment of the white bands and of the enclosed darker substance is peculiar: the bands follow an irregularly curvilinear direction ; the loculi hence affect the spheroidal or oval shape. This character helps to distinguish fibroma from scirrhus with great excess of fibrous stro ma ; in such scirrhi the fibres always exhibit a tendency to rectilinear arrangement. By firm pressure a transparent, pale straw coloured (never lactescent), and glutinous fluid may be forced from a fibrous tumour : its quantity is very small, and it may be infiltrated through the growth or accumulated in spots.
Microscopically these growths are found to consist of fasciculated and intertwined fibres, less nndulating in direction arid less clear in outline than those of natural fibrous tissue, arranged parallel to each other, and studded or not with minute inequalities, produced by the still remaining nuclei of original cells. In the soft fibrous tumour this filamentous ele ment is the same in character as in the hard ; but it is less abundant, less closely set, and scarcely fasciculated : in this variety, too, it is more common than in the hard, to find cells with granular contents, some of them assuming the fusiform shape. We have oc casionally seen fat-granules in these tumours ; but fat is never one of their predominant ele ments.
When submitted to ebullition, the entire mass of a fibrous growth is converted into a jelly (glutin), with the exception of a very minute quantity of protein substance, derived, pro bably, from associated blood : the walls of the few cells, such tumours contain, are insuffi cient to account even for that niinute quan tity. Their saline constituents are, in various proportions, those of the blood. Valentia attempts to show that fibrous tumours of the uterus are sometimes composed of fibrin : doubtless, as we have already explained (p. 126) heematomata of the uterus occur, ancl..:4 may undergo evolution into fibrous tumours : but we altogether discredit the alleged factH that tumours exhibiting the microscopical ' constitution of fibroma, are ever of protein basis.
The nature of fibroma leads it simply to enlarge, without change in, or around, itself. Some alterations of texture are so common, however, (the so-called cartilaginification and ossification) as to have passed for phases of evolution of' fibroma; others (congestion, in. flammation, serous infiltration, hzemorrhage, deposit of melanic matter, precipitation of fat, great development of vessels, and cancer ous formation,) are, on all hands, confessedly morbid.