CANCER TREATMENT.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 787, 9 April 1910, Page 5

CANCER TREATMENT.

lONIC METHOD. By Telegraph—Press Aisoolation-Oopyrlfflil London, April 7, for the first time m Europe, ionio surgery, as practised by Dr. Massey at tie Oncological Hospital; Chicago, is being tried at the Cancer Hospital, London. By the ionic treatment, the cancer growth is electrically pierced thrice with zinc needles, coated with mercury. . The growth is thus necrossed and snrrounded by a. sterilised zone. _

MEDICAL VIEWS. In a paper read before tho Medical Association in Wellington about two months, ago, Dr,. A. W. Izard defined what is. known as. the "ionic treatment," which, by the .way, is used in, a variety of disorders—gout, rheumatic scleritis, neuralgia, ringworm, lupus, rodent .ulcers,- boils and .carbuncles, strictures, neurasthenia, etc., appropriate chemical agents being selected according to the malady under treatment. Shortly, the principle of ionic treatment consists in the direct application of a particular drug to the "localised" seat of a disorder. Tho older method of treatment was to swaU low the medicine, and rely on the peculiar disposition of the essentia] curative agent—whatever drug it might happen to be—to concentrate at tho seat of the disorder per medium of the alimentary system. _ The principle jb not new, mention of it having been made in professional literature in 1908. In its application, 'the "ions'' (literally, "travellers") are dissociated from the particular drug by .means of a galvanic current, and, thus'set free, have the power of .penetrating tho tissues to a depth varying with the strength of:the current, resistance of tissue, and the activity of tho medium employed. It is thus possible to direotly approach a diseased part from without, the result being necrosis, or death of the part. Asked by a representative of The Dominion last ovening for an opinion on tho above cablegram, Dr. M'Gavin said that premature announcements such as these wore to be deprecated. It was a mistake to'raise false hopes of a system which was still 'in its experimental stage, and so create a tendency to dally with tho disease until it was toojato to grapple with it, The best authorities were agreed that for the present the surgeon's maxim should bo to operate with tho kuifo at the earliest possible tho disorder were operable. The difficulty with cancer was that in its incipient stages its presence was not made manifest by physical pain or loss of health, and in many cases when tho appearance of a lump on tho neck or the breast induced a feeling of uneasiness, culminating in a visit to .tho doctor, tho patient was beyond help. Again, tho disorder was sometimes doop-seated, and difficult of approach, and so far as tho "ionic" system of treatment was concerned, .the results of that treatment would be largely speculative. Such treatment and others such as the "violet leaves" remedy, wore only, as it were," playing with'the evil.