ANTI-GANGER CAMPAIGN.

Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 127, 8 April 1926, Page 3

ANTI-GANGER CAMPAIGN.

j CAUSES OF SCOURGE. Research Council’s Report. Cancer, and the work done in Britain by Dr. Gye and Mr Barnard, con- • stitutc the most interesting section of | the report published in January by the i Medical Research. Council for the year j 1924-25. j Introducing the researches of Dr. Gye and Mr Barnard, the report points out that it has been known for a quarter of a century that some and perhaps many of the microbes undeniably responsible in the casual sense for definite and grave diseases in man and other animals are in themselves completely non-virulcnt. Thus the bacilli of tetanus or their spores if washed and implanted alone in the body cause no illeffects. Similarly the microbes invariably associated with 11 gas ’ ’ gangrene are by themselves quite harmless. These two diseases were studied during the war by Dr. Gye and Dr. Cramer, who found that a minute quantity of r calcium enabled the otherwise harmi less bacillus to act with full virulence. \ Dr. Gye and Dr. Kettle also showed | that the tubercle bacillus became infinitely more infectious when associat]ed with silica. Dr. Gye, it is pointed | out, has now provided experimental j proof that the opinion put forward by Dr. Peyton Rous, of tho Rockefeller | Institute in 1911, that a malignant tumour can be caused by a filter-pass-ing organism, is true, and they show how Mr Barnard has made it possible to demonstrate its presence, pointing out also the need of a chemical factor if the disease is to be developed. The Paradox of Medicine. The council draws attention to what it describes as the great paradox of medicine. Those considering cancer from the clinical point of view were inclined generally to believe that some common causative factor must exist to link up the tumours of man and other animals, while those who rested on the experimental findings, such as that it was impossible to transplant a mouse tumour into an animal other than a mouse, tended to reject such a belief. Dr. Gye, it is shown, has resolved this paradox by proving that the microbe responsible is itself harmless, while it is the other factor that enables the microbe to become ’virulent, this factor differing with different species. In this way the cancer problem is definitely linked up with the problem of other diseases, such as tetanus, “gas” gangrene, consumption, etc. In connection with the wide range f covered by the researches, attention is drawn to "an interesting chance observation made during the year, ” when a wild fox voluntarily visited the Mill Hill Farm and was found in an open field to be sick and jaundiced. This observtion made it possible to link up the serious form of jaundice which has recently infected miners with not only the same infection that is known to occur in rats, but also with a form of the same disease met with in domestic dogs and often confused with distemper. In discussing the work of the department of applied optics the council not only reports on the special instrument devised by Mr Barnard in connection with filter-passing organisms generally and with cancer in particular, but. announces that as a result of the experience gained a new miseroscope is at l present under construction embodying j additional improvements. Incidence of Cancer. Cancer enters into the work of tho Statistical Department of the council, but it has not been found that any trade not already recognised as specially associated with the occurrence oi : cancer has an excptionally severe cancer death-rate, though several trades have been shown to have a cancer death-rate in excess of that found in J the general population. On the wholo cancer incidence is higher in people of low status, though in the case of certain organs, namely the bowel, pancreas, and prostate, the disease is relatively more common in people of high social status. The question of cancer areas has also J been investigated, aml the conclusion has been reached that "some relationship to soil seems to exist, but the physical features of land cannot be connected with the variations in incidence discovered. ” Work in the same department carried out iu the Roman Catholic and non-Catholic provinces of Ireland show that the influence of tho religious factor is not so important as is generally believed. Professor Leacock to Assist. A message from Toronto published in London, says that it is stated that Professor Stephen Leacock, the wellknown author and humorist, has determined to devote his fortune and his pen henceforth to the promotion of a strenuous campaign for the cure and prevention of cancer. It is understood that the British Society for the Control of Cancer will be the medium through which Professor Leacock will direct his efforts. Professor Leacock’s resolve is said to be due to the recent death in England of his wife, after the unsuc; ccssful administration of Professor Blair Bell’s lead solution treatment for