WAR AGAINST CANCER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 496, 19 October 1909, Page 2

WAR AGAINST CANCER.

The announcement that the trustees of the late Mr Harry Barnato have decided to employ the .£250,000 which the South African millionaire left for charitable purposes in adding an annexe to the Cancer Department of the Middlesex Hospital has been very generally applauded at Home. Even the promoters of the Cancer Research Fund, who might have expected to share in the benefits of the legacy, agree that the money could not have been better employed. The fell disease is responsible for 5000 deaths in London every year, and the tireless efforts of an army of specialists are making little headway against its ravages. It claims one woman in every seven, and one man in every eleven of the population who has passed the age of thirtyfive. The hospital wards are always overcrowded. Hundreds ot poor patients die in their own homes,, and receive little medical aid to', lessen the horrible sufferings of their last hours. Dr, Bashford, the general superintendent ot the Research Fund, in expresssng his approval of the decision of Mr Barnato’s trustees, referred to some of the misconceptions that prevail in regard to the disease. “It has been proved,” he said, “that practically all the aboriginal races inhabiting the ' British dominions and protectorates are liable to cancer. Ihe Japanese, who were supposed to be practically exempt from it, have been shown to die at the rate of 25,000 a year from the disease. It used to be supposed that climate, soil and diet were of great importance in determining the onset of cancer. But the favourable circumstances for investigating the influence of diet which in India —where, as is well known, the religious observances of the native castes restrict the diet in many cases to vegetable foods —have proved that diet has nothing to do with cancer.” Vegetarian castes, it appears, from the doctor’s ■ statement, suffer just as much from the disease as do those living on meat or on mixed diet, while the prevalence in races living in uncivilised conditions has disposed of the idea that climate and soil, or the peculiarities of European civilisation, were of fundamental importance. The truth is that the experts still have to confess themselves] as utterly baffled by this most dreadful scourge of mankind.