LYMPHADENOMA.
This peculiar enlargement of the lymphatic glands is also known under a variety of names, as llodgkin's Disease, Lymphatic Anaemia, Lymphadenia, &c.
There is still considerable reservation in accepting the bacillus discovered by Fraenkel and Much as the casual agent; and that it is not is probable from the failure of vaccine treatment.
The local treatment has up to the present proved most unsatisfactory. The few cases in which early excision of the glandular mass was followed by cure are suspected of being cases of mistaken diagnosis, and it cannot be doubted that in the later stages of the disease removal of the enlarged glands is worse than useless, and should he attempted only when by their mechanical pressure on vital parts life is seriously threatened. The injection of the glands by antiseptic solutions has not led to any benefit.
X rays have been much extolled; they certainly possess remarkable power in reducing the bulk of the tumours, and therefore have been pre maturely pronounced upon as a curative agent. But careful observation has demonstrated that this treatment is powerless to prevent the extension of the disease to the liver and spleen even when the glands shrink greatly in size under its influence. Better results have been obtained from
Radium emanations.
Arsenic internally is the best routine in all cases, and it can be employed in conjunction with Radium or X. rays. The drug may be given hypo dermically in the form of Cacodylate of Soda or by the mouth as Fowler's Solution; in either case the dose must be increased till physiological effects are elicited. Less than 15 mins. of the liquor arsenicalis thrice daily need not be expected to make any impression upon the glandular enlargements.
Vaccine therapy with minute doses of Tuberculin has proved curative in several cases which have obviously been of tuberculous nature, and not instances of true lymphadenoma or Hodgkin's disease. Likewise early excision is the only hope in those almost clinically identical examples of true lympho-sarcoma starting in an accessible lymphatic gland.