SCOURGE OF CANCER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 759, 4 September 1929, Page 9

SCOURGE OF CANCER

doctors discuss battle AGAINST DISEASE APPALLING DESTRUCTION SYDNEY. Tuesday. More than 400 delegates attended the opening session of the Medical Congress at Sydney University today. The president. Dr. Abbott. iu the course of his inaugural address said that although so far it had been impossible to get immediate results in the fight against cancer, the congress would act as a stimulus to those who were attacking the problem. Dr. U. P. Saudes. McCaughev professor of Surgery at Sydney University. and Director of Cancer Research, in discussing this subject, said the appalling destructiveness of cancer was disclosed in the cases that presented themselves at the clinics. It was a pathetic commentary on the limitation of the power of the medical profession at present to deal with cancer, which was the great problem of the white race.

The speaker reviewed Australian research efforts, and urged concentration on further investigation, with very full and frequent consultation among research workers. The cancer campaign, like war, must be carried on by combined effort. RESEARCH WORKERS SCARCE Money was easy to obtain, said Dr. Saudes, but to secure cancer research workers was much more difficult. Many brilliant students would become research workers but for the fact that they w'ould have to face an ascetic life and be deprived of many of the comforts enjoyed by an ordinary artisan. Dr. Peter MacCallum. professor of pathology at Melbourne University, reviewed the various forms of research being carried on there. lie said they included investigation into the gastric changes produced in cancer patients, tissue extracts anti growths in women. Dr. Vyers. of Brisbane, dealt with experiments in Queensland. He said treatment by lead had fallen into disuse, but treatment by radium was making progress. One great difficulty was to induce people in the country centres to procure early treatment for what they regarded as trivial sores. WORK IN NEW ZEALAND Dr. A. Lendon, South Australia, emphasised the need for propaganda. Dr. Burrows detailed the efforts of the Commonwealth Government in the direction of research. He said they mainly consisted of the establishment of radium clinics in the various States. Sir Louis E. Barnett, emeritus professor of surgery. Otago University, New’ Zealand, said research in that Dominion had been somewhat starved, the Government having no money available. However, he was convinced that much could be done. possibly without actually discovering the cause of cancer. In the four large cities in the Dominion funds had been raised for radium treatment.