HEALTH NOTES

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 118, 9 August 1927, Page 6

HEALTH NOTES

CANCER WHAT THE PUBLIC SHOULD KNOW EARLY SIGNS—EARLY TREATMENT (Contributed by the Department of Health.) Cancer is one of the most formidable diseases of present-day civilised communities. Although the large majority of people go through life, even to old age, without suffering from cancer, the risk of being attacked with this disease is one which is widely disseminated. When Sir Berkeley Moynihan,' president of the Royal College of Surgeons, started the Yorkshire Cancer Campaign, he was told he would frighten people to death. His reply was that lie would frighten them to life. What was to be (Treaded he said was ignorance about cancer, not knowledge, and so far they were abundantly justified in the campaign. • Therefore, it is very important that people should know the early signs of cancer, or better still the condition which may give rise to the. disease, so that they may secure treatment while cure is still within their reach, IMPORTANT TRUTHS ABOUT CANCER The following are some of the*truths which the eminent authority referred to considers it is important. for the public to know. (1) Cancer is always at first a local disease, spreading by direct extension from the spot first affected. It is often supposed that cancer is a “blood disease”—that the blood is contaminated and that the local evidence of this is the nodule or the ulcer recognised as cancerous. All knowledge we possess refutes this view. (2) Cancer chooses to attack a diseased rather than a healthy organ. This involves the necessity for us all to pay attention to health and to do all we can to keep fit. (3) The occurrence of cancer is influenced by antecedent conditions. Chronic irritation is a definite precursor of cancer, as is seen, especially upon exposed surfaces. (4) The occurrence of cancer, so far as we know, is uninfluenced by certain factors sometimes regarded as “causes.” (a) There does not appear to be any hereditary predisposition to cancer. The fact that one person in seven over the age of 30 dies from cancer implies that within the limits of slight variation from this normal the incidence in any family may appear to be unduly heavy. Probably few families of ordinary size escape cancer in three consecutive generations. The work of Miss Maud Slye upon mice appears to show that a tendency to the development of cancer can be engendered by special breeding, but no similar liability can be recognised in man. (b) Cancer, so far as we know, is not caused by any special food or foods, nor by any absence of special foods. It is true that excessive indulgence in food when little or no exercise is taken will steadily and insidiously depreciate the general health, and that in such circumstances of lessened resistance a person may more easily fall a victim to cancer as to other diseases. Various articles of diet have been impugned—tomatoes, fresh meat, salt, and many others —but there is no evidence that would satisfy a scientific mind that these or any other articles of diet, in excess or in abstinence, play any specific part in causing this disease. So far as we know, no change in the natural history of a malignant growth has ever been observed by competent authorities to result from such dietetic control in an case of carcinoma, (c) There is at present no sufficient proof that cancer-houses or cancerdistricts exist, though further inquiry may well be conducted to resolve this question. • (5) The disease is neither infectious nor contagious. (6) In the carls'- stages cancer rarely causes pain. In tumours of the breast, for instance, no pain as a rule is caused until the skin is involved; the lump is discovered by accident, and little regard is paid to it because it causes no inconvenience or discomfort. The truth that in women over 35 years of age a lump in the breast is malignant in three cases out of four needs all the repetition and emphasis that can he given to it. The silence of some forms of growth in the stomach and the rectum is notorious, and in the alimentary canal it is often obstruction rather than discomfort that first attracts attention. In cases of cancer, ill-health, anaemia, lassitude, distaste for food, and loss of weight are often regarded as the symptoms without which a diagnosis may hardly be made, but the existence of carcinoma is compatible with perfect health, and there may even be a gain in weight and a remarkable feeling of vigour and strength. (7) While the disease is local and when the growth is accessible, cancer Is curable. While the disease is local the complete eradication not only of the part immediately involved, but of all the adjacent parts which are most likely to be first implicated in its extension would also cure the disec.se. In a large number of cases, however, the growths are not accessible, or lend themselves only to the most danngerous and least successful forms of surgical attack. PREVENTION AND CURE The prevention and cure of cancer, then, call for the closest 60-operation between«the patient and the medical practitioner. Firstly, the onset of cancer can be prevented in many cases by the elimination of any causes of chronic irritation. Rough stumps of teeth should be removed, and ill-fitting dentures should' be replaced. If pipesmoking is found to produce soreness on the same spot of lip or tongue, it should be abandoned. Clothing which causes irritation of any particular region of the body, i.e., the breast, should be altered. Advice and treatment should be sought in disorders of stomach, bowels, or womb. Secondly, if any of the conditions quoted above are present, medical advice should be immediately sought. In many cases the condition will be found to be not of a serious nature. Where it is due to canqer, however, the patient will have the benefit of early surgical treatment. There are many cases alive and well to-day in which cancerous growths have been removed in early stages once and for all.