CANCER CAMPAIGN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 40013, 22 October 1929, Page 1

CANCER CAMPAIGN.

WHAT CAN BE DONE

PLUNKET SOCIETY’S EXAMPLE

DUNEDIN, Oct. 19. An Otago and Southland division of the Now Zealand branch of the British Empire Cancer Campaign is to be formed next week. The provisional committee, of which Sir Louis Barnett is chairman, has issued the following circular explaining the necessity of every part of the Dominion taking a dose interest in this movement:

“Cancer is Lhe gravest and most urgent problem of modern medicine and surgery. Making every allowance for the more accurate diagnosis of disease resulting from the present-day knowledge, and for the longer duration of life, whereby more people live to old ago than formerly, and so have gicater chances of falling victims to cancer, the undoubted fact remains that cancer, particularly among highlycivilised peoples, is distressingly prevalent; and, what is worse, it is on the increase. “There are, indeed, but few families whose homes have not been invaded by lhe tragedy of cancer. The authorities agree that at a low estimate every tenth person who reaches middle life is doomed to die of cancer. This <rloomv prediction takes no account of lhe numerous cases who have suffered from cancer and have fortunately been cured, and of those other numerous cases who have cancer hut die of some o.iier disease or injury. Such a desperate state of affairs calls for a united and determined resistance on the part of the community. • “Just as infantile mortality has been '■educed in dramatic fashion by the magnificent work of Sir Truby King and the Blanket Society, even so is it possible, with a cancer campaign, to r dace the sum of sickness, suffering and mortality due to this ever-increas-ing malignant affliction. Without any shadow of doubt a cancer campaign, properly organised and financed, could do an immense service to the community.”