CANCER MICROBE

Shannon News, 20 April 1926, Page 4

CANCER MICROBE

IS IT DISCOVERED? V LONDON, Feb. 17. Yet another claim to have discovered the cancer microbe was placed [before the scientific world in a lectui'e given by Dr. Josef Schumacher [at a meeting of the Microbiological | Society, Berlin. His claim, according to competent scientific authorities, is well founded; and \i is made by an investigator who for many years has been at work on histo-chemical lines, and •who already has several cancer research discoveries to his credit. At lh-3 lecture, Dr. Schumacher showed a number of excellently-pro-duced pictures and slides of bacterial organisms, which he claimed were specimens of the cancer microbe. For the purpose of making them visible ho adopted quite a new method of treating them, so that they took on a blue colour. They are, he declared, unusually large ,and can easily be seen when magnified 'sixty times. Dr. Schumacher believes that they are vegetable creations, for they have well-formed membranes. Their shape is that of the letter "S," with bulbs at both ends, and ;they appear in astounding numbers in tissues whose condition is between that of health and that of illness. When conditions are favourable to the creatures, they "advance" on the diseased tissue like a vast, army." So■ far as Dr. Schumacher has discovered, i.hey flourish most when the lymphatic organs are not functioning properly; and they are found more in connective tissues and in partitions of the blood vessels than in the part, actually affected, where they can be quickly destroyed. Always Where Cancer is. In all cases of cancer which he has examined, Dr. Schumacher has found These bacilli present. ~He believes they can be introduced into the system by the consumption of raw vegetables and fruit; and he hoids that this is a cause of frequent primary troubles of the stomachic and intestinal order which afflict mankind. That there are comparatively few cases of cancer in the. farther north and. in tropical climatcs i he attributes to the fact that vegetables are less used in the north as food, and that round the Equator the dryness and heat prevent the growth of the microbe outside the body.