The pathology of benign polypoid gastric tumours.

Abstract

The term polyp (or polypus) is derived from the Greek and means “many footed”; it was a descriptive eponym applied to certain invertebrates—cuttlefishes—and referred to their mode of attachment to rocks. In human pathology it is applied to pedunculated tumours (usually arising from mucous secreting surfaces lining cavities) which in shape and appearance bear a passing resemblance to the invertebrate polypus. It is said that Celsus (during the first century) used the term in connection with a tumour of the nasal cavity. In 1557, so it is said, Amatus Lusitanus described the post-mortem finding of a polyp of the stomach, but we can form little idea of its pathological nature. In 1732 (?) Ruysch, the Dutch anatomist, reported the post mortem revelation of a gastric wall tumour which contained hair—doubtless a dermoid cyst. During the nineteenth century one of the most important contributions to the subject from the pathologists' point of view was that of Menetrier who, with characteristic French clarity, ana...