CANCER CURES.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1504, 29 July 1912, Page 5

CANCER CURES.

- SOIYIPLETE SUCCESS CLAIMED. By Teleeraali—Press Association—CoDyright London, July; 26. Dr. Forbes Boss,, who has been experimenting with potassium as a euro for cancer, mentions'a desperate case, where potassium was given in largo doses, and radium was also applied, the result being marvellous. ; A cancer which a surgeon was nnablo. to touch disappeared completely in six weeks. . The director of the Radium Institute desoribed the case as most wonderful. Dr. Eoss also mentions that a decided improvement .was made in a case where a lady was sent home to die, and potas- -. shim and yoko of egg was prescribed. Furthermore, a lady who was in tie last - stage of cancer, and'was given six .weeks to live, was now, after the potassium treatment, quite well. A GREAT SURGEON'S THEORY. CANCER A NE-WLY-DISCOVEEED . 'ANIMAL. .' There is one and only one explanation • jf the conduct of -tlio cancer, cell—it has teen endowed with that wondrous giit which uo man has seen and which no man can understand, the gift of life. Owin" to that gilt, it is an independent creature, a living thing. The host in which it dwells lias fashioned it out oi his own tissues and in tho likeness of tlioso tirfuos. To borrow tho figurative language of Scripture, the Creator has breathed into it the breath of- life, : and it becomes a rentable Frankenstein s monster, bent on the destruction of its Inst. After the ages during which scientists and philosophers have sought to explain tho origin and nature of bfe, we have come no 'further than this. He who discovers the true origin, of cancer will have solved ■ the enigma which has hitherto baffled tho searchers in all ages and of all countries.. . , , , Thus is the problem of cancer stated bv one of the most brilliant and renowned {'. Britain's, medical scientists, Sir Henry Butlin,/ Bart., past .president of the Eoyal College of Surgeons of .England. Even it one.cannot agreo with his theory— which is/making a sensation abroad—one musL,at'least suspend judgment, deolares thjeTXondon "Lancet," in view ot ,bir Henry's right to speak with authority . ..flatter a lifetime of experience and study ' ' of the subject. To quote from the woTds of his rocenfc leoturo befovo the Royal College of Surgeons of England:— :"If the cancer cell bo in ■ truth a now ' creature, to what class of creaturo does it belong? It is nearest to the protozoa—so near, indeed, that it is difficult to keep it ont of the' protozoa. Every new observation of the last six years— . every new discovery—has brought it nearer to the protozoa. But the biologists -frill have none of it. I must therefore : make a special place for it and provido jt with a name. It shall be Unicellula cancri. And for the different varieties the. shape of tho cell can be '■ expressed in ■ pimple terras whioh will bo familiar to us all. ..;.-• "I am perfectly ' conscious of the farreaching consequences of admitting that unicellular bodies . derived. from such a Eource are a now species of created beings, but there is no alternative.' The facts are plain and cannot, I believe, bo otherwise interpreted. If the theory is .false, I can only say it is very remarkable that it should explain, in so satisfactory a manner, the chief and nearly all the subordinate phenomena of cancer. ' "Students of cancer, .research workers, biologists who have studied cancer, ' are Xll practically agreed that tho cancer cell is derived from the cells of tho part ' n which it takes its origin,, or appears to take its origin, and. they are bent' on finding an. of .the,, reasons which lead' tho ".cancer 'cell 'to. 'behavb so differently from tho cells from which it is derived.. Escape from natural restraints —the:acquirement;of the.habit of growth— the theory of .embryonic rests—chemical -.; stimulation—a v self-contained and ordin- ' nrilv, invisible micro-organism living in symbiosis with 'the cell—those are some of the theories by_ which learned men have pought to explain 'the strange conduct of tho cancer cell. "• "Empty phrases! ' They might account far variations in colour, size, shape, secretion, degeneration, physical activity—fora multitude of the variations from the mrinnt cell exhibited by the cancer cell. Put how can any of them account for the vital difference which-I will express in " two short sentences? Implant the normal rMI. and you cannot make it live. Imnlnnt the cancer cell, and vou cannot kill it." . Reviewing the application of his theory to the conditions of cancer, Sir Henry points out that it offers.a ready explanation' of the first great phenomenon of cancer—the tumour—and of all the changes whioh _may occur in it. It offers an explanation of metastasis—the occurrence of masses in various parts of the body, resembling nearly always in their elements . the tumour. In fact.it.explains so simply so many of the phenomena of cancer 'that it is necessary to make diligent searoh to discover tho two or three phenomena' which are not explained bv it. Of these, again, it may be said that there is not one of them which endangers tho acceptance of tho theory and that they are. equally inexplicable by any other theory which has yot been advanced.