SCIENCE NOTES.

Hokitika Guardian, 28 February 1924, Page 1

SCIENCE NOTES.

PROGRESS OF CANCER RESEARCH. LONDON, Jan. 3. A man in Durban maintains that a Natal plant called vinca is a specific for diabetes. He states that tie ridded himself of the malady two years ago, and lias had no return of it. He has since sent its leaves to many other suil'erers. Some of them are shortly being sent to England for a scientific test. The man is Ernest Mbyte, a native registration officer at Greyville. For hint the vinca treatment was prescribed in 1921 by a medical man who refuses to make his name public. Mr Mbyte is convinced that the two years are sufficient time lor the malady to return if it were going to do so. He now cultivates the plant on hi.- o" u property.

At present experiments are being made with a view to discovering whether tlie leaves can he dried and an extract made from them without impairing- their properties. The treatment. if followed a.- Mr Mbyte himself followed if, lasts about eight months, and for the first half of that period ! here is stated to be little apparent improvement. After that time, however, it is marked and rapid. If vinca is what Mr M’hytc thinks it is, it may be a rival to insulin—and very cheap, too.

TM'KNTY SYLLABLES AT A TIME LONDON. Jan. 3.

At the novelty exhibition now in progress at King’s College, Air Hope Pagenal lectured on the subject of “Acoustics of Building's.”

He asked his hearers to dismiss popular notions on the subject, as they were nearly all misleading. They had yet to consider what they really wanted in the building in the way of good hearing. That was not so simple as it sounded. It wa> common for a spoken syllable in a cathedral to lasi for five seconds, and an organ note for ten seconds. Tlie rate of syllables in conversational speech was something like four per second, so that with a reverberation of about live seconds in a lively sermon in a cathedral syllables assembled upon tho car twenty at a time. Now preachers in 81. Paul’s Cathedral were warned that their sermons must consist <ti only half the number of words that they would use in a parish church. The reverberation there was such as practically to prevent rapid speech. \Ve lived, the lecturer said, surrounded bv mirrors of noise, and where we were not allowed a carpet to absorb sound we ought to consider the possibility of placing an equivalent somewhere else —on the walls or the ceiling. A cough in a modern hygienic class room might Im reflected backwards and forwards for as many as eighty times.

GREAT YEAR OF HEALTH. According to the statistics which are being brought out. by the Ministry of Health, and based upon the records for London and the 105 large towns, the year 1923 was one of England’s healthiest years. The general public health was never better; the death late was the lowest on record for England and M’alex—ll.B per thousand, and fm London 11,3: influenza, bi'.aiiliil is. and pneumonia claimed fewer victims; the usual epidemic of iiit'ii F- “fell flab” : don tbs from inbi ttitio !. and heart trouble., were ygd tire, inram. mortality rate dropped again. True, there were certain tin- tv fact-. Cancer, enteric fever, and smallpox took their toll of limn.in life, smallpox showing a sharp i iso in the provinces, though London was almost free.

There lias been no recurrence oT tlso dreaded type of influenza which wrought havoc- in 1918, ami caused so much mortality union" tlio.se whose

ages were between 20-4 d. Why measles should have failed to put in its customary appearance on a large scale until the end of the year is a puzzle, and the decreasing infantile death rate is not to he so easily accounted for. though there are definite reasons why the death rate should have dropped in this case by one hall since 1881. Tn 1923 the number of infants per 1000 under one year who died in England and Wales was 70 ((50 in London), which shows hotter than the records of previous years. Figures -com to show that England is having fewer babies, hut is looking after them hotter. In general, when the birth rate, is high the infant mortality is high. The enthusiasm and interest awakened in mothers in regard to the knowledge and care of their children has been rapid, and is steadily gaining progress. It is hopeful lor the future. CANCER RESEARCH. The eighth oilieial scientific report oi the Imperial Cancer Research Fund nas been made public. It is a highly technical document, but there arc .•.onto tacts which will interest the layman. A patter contributed by Dili. R. (1. 11 us sell goes to show (says tiie medical correspondent of the ■Daily Telegraph”) that in its dealings with the six commoner physiological sugars, cancer tissue shows no difference from ordinary normal healthy cells. Rut a curious fact has been noted in its attraction for, and power of consuming, a rare sugar, pentose —a characteristic which, with one exception, is not shared by thv normal tissues of the animal observed. Superficially, this may seem a small point, but its possibilities can be readily discerned: lor here has been found a ignored by normal healthy cells, that cancer cells ingest and at once break up, and ii it were to he found practicable to combine some powerful drug with it, such as arsenic, which could thus be released within the cancer cell, a weapon of the profoundest therapeutic value would be placed within our hands. It is. of course, far too early even to enumerate ibis as a possible deiinite “ cancer cure,” but experiments are now being conducted, it is understood, along these lines, and their results will be awaited with the acutost interest.

JXDFJ’KXDENT OK VITAMINS. In the same sphere, another investigator, -Mr W. Cramer, lias been carrying out a series oi investigations with' the object of determining the in- j dependence or utlienvi.se of cancer cells j on the now widely-known vitamins, j Here, again, the results were negative, in so far as no difference was oh-j served, under common conditions, between normal cells and cancer cells hut the interesting fact was demonstrated that, while the life and growth of cancer cells were apparently _ quite independent of the presence of vitamin.-, so were those of the normal cells observed. A common misconception would thus, incidentally, seem to have been cleared up, as it. were, en route; and it- appears to have been shown that while to a highly developed organism vitamins are essential for its life and well-being, they are not necessary for the' life and growth at any rate of large numbers of its individual cells.

GROM'TH STIMULATING BODIES. Following Air Cramer’s contribution is a study l>v Dr. A. H. Drew, which to biologists jvill be perhaps tlie most interesting of the series, of the growth outside tho body of normal and cancerous tissues. Founded largely upon the work ot Carrel in America, who showed in 1912 that in certain nutritive media cells might be grown for many generations, Dr. Drew has been able to establish comparisons that may well prove iruit fnl in further discoveries of all kinds. Thus, while normal embryonic tissues, normal adult tissues, and cancer tissues can easily grow outside the body in suitable coagulated or liquid media, for continuous growth tliev all require the additional presence of some unknown .substance, so far only found in extracts ol embryonic tissue. Nevertheless, without this, both embryonic tissue and cancer tissue are capable of a temporary growth denied to normal adult tissue. And it was further found that tumour tissue contained a second unknown, but actively growthstiiimhiting body, which was only obtained from normal adult tissues after Utese had been broken down by autolysis. JEALOUSY OF A CANCEROUS GROM’TH. Perhaps even more striking, hotvc'cr, on the face of them, and also suggesting avenues crying for exploration, are Dr. Murray’s experiments on tli - curious immunity apparently eon■11 1 1 <• d by the presence of a malignant tumour, lie Inis found that when an artificial cancer has been produced and definitely established—the irritant used is generally tar—it is extremely difli■nlt and often impossible to establish a second on the same subject. This is tho more curious since the growth of the first tumour, and its mechanically separated and secondary colonies goes on unchecked; but there is evidently engendered some force, at present unknown, hostile to the presence of a sc""<l, though identical tumour. In Dr. -Murray’s words, “The nature of this refractory state must he the subject of luiiher investigation. But the rarity ol multiple malignant now growths in the smile individual finds a rational explanation by it.” Its greatest interest. and importance, however, as lie goes on to point out, “lies in the indication it gives of a systemic constitutional change in the organism in which cancer inis developed, a change which, if it could he recognised with certainly and rapidity, would enable us to recognise cancer in its earliest stages, and, could wc produce it without initiating a new malignant growth, would place in our hands a rational means of prevention.”