JEWS NOT IMMUNE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 412, 21 July 1928, Page 9

JE WS NOT IMMUNE

A BELIEF REFUTED CANCER CONFERENCE ENDS (United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Press Association.) Received 9.5 a.m. LONDON, Friday. THE closing of the Cancer Conference was signalised by the sole Australasian contribution, also an expert’s refutation of the common belief that the Jewish people were comparatively immune from cancer owing to their hygienic rituals.

Sir John Bland Sutton presided. Dr. Sourasky, a Jewish practitioner of London, quoted statistics of the five principal cities of Europe proving that cancer among Jews and" others ■was approximately equal whererrer the conditions were similar. Dr. L. M. McKillop, Queensland, said the cancer death-rate in the Commonwealth of Australia was only one in 43 in 1885, compared with one in nine in 1925. He estimated it to reach one in five within 30 or 40 years at the present alarming rate of progression.

An analysis of Commonwealth figures showed that with the exception of Victoria, Queensland had the greatest incidence of disease. Moreover, there was a distinct tendency for it to attack younger people. Sir George Buchanan, of the Ministry of Health, commented on the steadily increasing mortality from cancer. For England and Wales in 1875, there were only 455 deaths in a million population; in 1905 the number had increased to 939 a million; now it was 1,376, notwithstanding im proved surgery, anaesthetics, pathology and radiology.