CANCER

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 15 September 1924, Page 2

CANCER

SHOULD IT BE NOTIFIABLE? In the course of the discussions of the British Medical Association in London last month, Dr. Hall Edwards (Birmingham), who has lost his Hands in X-ray work, spoke on public health authorities and the canoelr problem. He said that' although we were not pmking any headway in diminishing the appalling deathrate from this terrible disease, yet there, were* means by which its tragedies might be modified. The first rational step should be notification. The idea that people should be kept in ignorance about suifering from it was opposed to this step, but he thought sooner or later the drastic course would have to be adopted. It was quite obvious that our hospitals were not equipped for dealing with the disease, and he believed that the time had arrived when in voluntary hospitals the State should give the necessary apparatus for treatment, ft was m recognising the first symptoms* and in propaganda that he believed many lives would be saved. Nurses and welfare workers should be instructed a . G to _ the symptoms, and no stone should be left unturned to deal as effectively as possible with the disease, steps _ should also be taken to* render tire victims’ lives as tolerable as posto lo per cent, of the lives could be saved with notification and propaganda work. .. “Y e are told,” said Dr. Hall Edwards, that smoking causes cancer of the tongue. This is probably only to a limited degree. If it were true half the male population would be wiped T t uf Ve 1 ry year - • There cau he no c.oubt that smoking that causes irritation where there is a lesion of the tongue may have injurious effects.”