T.B. AND CANCER

Hokitika Guardian, 13 February 1929, Page 6

T.B. AND CANCER

(United Press Association~By Electric 1 elegraph—Copyright). NEW YORK, Feb. I'2. Doctor Francis Carter Wood, Head of the Cancer Research Institute of Columbia University, commenting on a Melbourne despatch concerning the research studies of Dr Cllierry at Melbourne University, said that he was not at all surprised at the hitter’s findings. “The general view among medical men,” he said, “is that there is a lower tubercular rate because more people have gone on to have cancer. The decline in the mortality from tuberculosis is generally accepted as tile reason for the rise in the cases of cancer. Since cancer is a disease of old people, and tuberculosis is one of young, anything that prolongs the life oi the individual in the community increases the liability to cancer.”

It is interesting to note that Dr Raymond Pearl, the Director of the Institute of Biological Research at the John Hopkins University, has just published a statistical study of 7,560 autopsies. He says: “In 886 persons who had a great deal of florid tuberculosis. there were but one point two per cent, with malignant tromours. On u.e other hand, in BS6 persons with no record of lesions of tuberculosis at the autopsy, and having the same age, sex, and- racial distribution, case for case, as those very actively tubercular, there were nine point three per cent, with malignant treniours.” As the result of those studies, the special treatment of selected cases or persons with malignant treniours with certain forms of tuberculin has been undertaken.