The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 1929 THE WHITE MAN’S SCOURGE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 634, 10 April 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 1929 THE WHITE MAN’S SCOURGE

/TANCER kills about fifty thousand in Great Britain every year and nearly twice that number in the United States. The disease is prevalent throughout the greater part of the British Empire and almost exclusively scourges the white population of vast dominions. With the single exception of Scotland, the incidence of cancer is worst in this country. New Zealand persistently holds eleventh place in the world's black list of cancerous countries. It is true that Australia suffers 5,700 deaths from cancer annually as compared with New Zealand’s 1,300, but no State in the Commonwealth has so high a mortality rate as this Dominion. These grievous facts should be sufficient in themselves to stimulate and promote public support of the medical and administrative crusade against this malignant disease. Those who cannot be impressed by statistics need only exercise a little of their imagination on the appalling' suffering behind the lamentable record of mortality in order to realise how much it is the duty of every citizen to strengthen the hands of competent campaigners.

Laymen, of course, can do nothing more than observe the extent of the havoc wrought by cancer among white communities. The technical side of the international crusade must he left to medical ekperts although they, according to some candid commentators in their own profession, have not yet done much more to cure the disease than has been accomplished by inexpert observers. As an English medical writer has said, “fabulous sums of money have been spent on the alleged discovery of a universal cancer parasite, and innumerable animals have been experimented upon, but what is the upshot? Not one cancer patient has had his life prolonged by a single second or relieved of one pang; nor has a single case been prevented, in sixteen years, of a disease, which is largely preventable. . . . Meanwhile the disease spreads, and we are instructed to marvel and rejoice because an imaginary discovery is followed by a new discovery which proves that the former discovery was imaginary.” That is rather a long quotation to make, but its length was necessary to show that in respect of the cause of cancer, the medical experts have about as much to learn as laymen. It has to be noted, however, that the medical profession now demonstrates a hopeful promise of being surer than it has been in the past on the remedial treatment of cancer and even about its cure. Radium, instead of the surgeon’s knife, is now hailed as the best remedy and the nearest thing to a complete cure. As far as the public is concerned, its interest will be devoted less to the question whether radium should be the right hand or the left hand of the surgeon than to the more important question whether or not the use of radium will justify the enormous initial expense of procuring sufficient quantities of it to make its treatment more remedial than the knife. Unfortunately, radium is scarce and of a monstrous price, due to the operations of the Belgian Congo monopoly. Radium costs £.12,000 a gramme and any country which maintains the New Zealand system of having many general hospitals, all needing radium and clamouring for it as the best known means of fighting cancer, manifestly is at a serious disadvantage. It is impracticable tp supply all hospitals with an ample quantity. An Auckland radiologist, who has returned from Australia where he studied the processes and progress of radium treatment of cancer, has explained that at the Melbourne Hospital alone £60,000 worth of radium was in use. Dr. McDougall also mentioned to an interviewer that Wellington Hospital, with a gramme, had the largest quantity in New Zealand, while the Auckland Hospital, the largest in the Dominion, had a little less than a third of a gramme, and was without the radium needles which are essential to effective treatment of malignant tissues. It is obvious therefore, that if radium treatment of cancer mav he carried out successfully in each of the main public hospitals in this country the authorities will have to face the need of spending huge sums on securing an adequate supply of radium. In France and Sweden, where radium treatment "of cancer is admittedly practised at its best, the splendid services are concentrated at Baris and Stockholm. Great Britain also favours concentration until such time as radium may he more easily procurable at a reasonable price. Perhaps New Zealand ought to consider very carefully what other countries are doing before committing itself to an enormous expenditure on distributed effort.