CARCINOMA OF THE LUNG: A STUDY OF ITS INCIDENCE, PATHOLOGY AND RELATIVE IMPORTANCE

Abstract

The increasing incidence of carcinoma of the lungs is attracting the attention of many observers. Since the time it was first recognized by Bayle,₁ in 1810, who described it as "phtisie cancereuse," one of his six varieties of phthisis, it has almost been a tradition that carcinoma of the lung is an extremely rare disease of negligible clinical importance and that its antemortem diagnosis is practically impossible. Very few textbooks devote more than a paragraph to the whole subject. A review of the more recent literature shows that it is time to discard these false concepts. The relatively frequent occurrence of the disease is today making imperative for its recognition a more detailed knowedge of its pathology, symptomatology and differential diagnosis. Hampeln₂ states that the idea of the rarity and undiagnosability of the primary tumors of the lung has been gradually changed since 1895. Not only is there