A NEW INTERPRETATION OF THE PATHOLOGIC HISTOLOGY OF HODGKIN'S DISEASE

There are two outstanding theories concerning the nature and origin of Hodgkin's disease: one, that it is primarily an infective granulomatous lesion of the lymph nodes with secondary changes in the spleen, liver and other tissues; the second theory postulates that the disease is neoplasmic from the beginning. Neither offers an acceptable explanation of the process as a whole, and there is considerable evidence in contradiction of both. The histologic changes in Hodgkin's disease were originally described by Sternberg¹ as the expression of a peculiar type of lymph node tuberculosis. Repeated efforts to detect tubercle bacilli in suitably stained microscopic preparations, and the injection of freshly emulsified lymph nodes into susceptible animals, have failed, however, to confirm this view, and it has since been generally abandoned. More recent efforts to implicate a diphtheroid micro-organism as the cause of Hodgkin's disease have likewise been discredited. Nevertheless, the