Practical presumptions and mathematical problems in estimating theIn addition to such parameters as morphology, the number of animals with " takes ", and survival time, the estimation of the number and size of tumor nodules plays an important role in experimental oncology. However, most workers in this field have confined themselves to arbitrary grading of the tumor sizes and counting of tumor nodules visible to the naked eye.The calculation of the actual size and number of circumscribed structures in various organs, using the size and numbers of their images in section, is an old problem in experimental morphology. This has been defined by Wicksell (1 925) as the " corpuscle problem ". Earlier works have mostly been concerned with such " normal " structures as lymphatic follicles, Hassal's bodies, pancreatic islands, or single cells and nuclei. These structures are more or less regularly shaped and have a fairly simple type of size distribution which can be postulated or determined (cf. Hellman, 1959). Hammar (1914) calculated the size and number of Hassal's bodies in the thymus. After serial sectioning of the organ the images of the corpuscles were determined planimetrically.The corpuscles were grouped according to their size and empirical correction factors were used for the calculation of the real size distribution from their apparent size in section. Wicksell (1925Wicksell ( , 1926) studied the mathematical relationship between the apparent and actual size distributions of spherical and ellipsoid bodies.He showed that this relationship could be expressed in an Abelian integral equation.
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