CANCER CURE.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 318, 20 January 1902, Page 1

CANCER CURE.

London newspapers give considerable space to an alleged cure of cancer by the application of violet leaves. The facts as stated by the London Daily News are as follows Lady Margaret Marsham, sister of the Earl of Romney, was brought to the point of death by a cancer which defied surgery. A visiting friend, who called to bid the unfortunate lady good-bye, since she was believed by her physicians to be in extremis, recalled that when a child she had heard an old nurse say that cancer could be cured by the leaves of the violet. No objection being raised to the experiment, since the duration of life seemed a matter of a few hours at most, a bunch of fresh violet leaves was procured and macerated in a quart of water. Lint was soaked in the greenish infusion and applied to the seat of the disease. The lady did not die. The treatment was repeated daily, and coincidently. with it the malignant growth subsided, and at last quite disappeared. The Daily News, which reports the facts, is authority for the further statement that Lady Margaret is now in good health, all trace of the cancerous trouble having disappeared. It assures its readers that the incidents oi this extraordinary case are correctly reported, as to sequence of events, but declines to attest the apparent relation of cause and eflect. The best accessible medical talent agreed as to the diagnosis, so the cancerous nature of the growth, as attested by cultures, may be assumed, in the absence of proof to the contrary. The violet treatment was applied’ on the chance that it might do gopd and in the certainty that it could not do harm. The disease subsided, it ultimately disappeared altogether, and the patient is now fully recovered, but whether violets had anything to do with it is a question wliich those for whom the matter has interest mu'* decide for themselves, The median authorities consulted by the Daily News naturally refuse to pass specific judgment upon the curative value of the violet in cancer treatment. Nevertheless the demand for violets has been so great of late that on more than one occasion “ famine prices ” have been paid for bunches of them at Covent Garden by those having friends known to be suffering from the too prevalent curse of cancer, and

it is difficult to maintain a supply equal to the new demand.