FIGHT AGAINST CANCER

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1001, 18 June 1930, Page 1

FIGHT AGAINST CANCER

CONFIDENCE EXPRESSED BY SURGEON A VALUABLE DISCOVERY Special to THE SUE WELLINGTON, Today. If the Dominion aim’s at important results from cancer research, it should concentrate upon the problem from the standpoint of biochemistry, said Dr. E. Munderson today. Dr. Munderson. a graduate of Edinburgh and of the London College of Surgeons (the Royal College) has done much research work in the disease, attacking it from the dietetic standpoint. Convinced that the problem will ultimately be solved, he believes that this solution will come from the causal side. Modern thought is that cancer is curable already If it is manifested in certain forms that is to say, we have learned to discriminate between the malignant and nonmalignant cancers and to know when and where a cancer cell may travel in the human body. In this connection, the work of the microscope has been invaluable, for it has shown clearly just what is the difference between these forms of cancer. Dr. Munderson is convinced that the accumulating body of information i on cancer is more likely to show it to j be an occupational or environmental I disease than one due to food. He ! considers that the most valuable disI cover}- yet made, from the biological | point of view, and one which may lead to great results, is the find that the cancer cell acts differently upon sugar : in the course of the usual chemical processes of the body. The ordinary j cell may attack sugar in two ways—it may make a combination of it with oxygen or it may split it up into a series of simple forms. The cancer cells break up far more sugar than they oxidise and in this they differ from all other cells save those of extremely young embryos. They do this, even in the presence of much oxygen, which influences the other cells to act differently. In this new development of science —the study intensively of the chemical processes of the body, there is found the hope for the future, says Dr. Munderson.