HOPE FOR CANCER VICTIMS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 234, 11 February 1911, Page 9

HOPE FOR CANCER VICTIMS

FAMOUS SURGEON'S OPTIMISTIC VIEWS. For the twenty-ninth annual Bradshaw lecture, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons, London, on December 7, Sir Alfred Pearce Gould, K.C.V.0., senior surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital, chose the subject of cancer.

He pointed out that cancer occurred not only in all races of men, but in all vertebrate animaU, birds, reptiles and fishes. Thousands of experiments upon mice, race and dogs had proved that it could be transferred from "host to host," but towering above these facts was the greater and all-important one, that cancer could not be transferred to an animal of another species. Cancer was the result of a breach or failure of fundamental cell law, a law so majestic that obedience to it resulted in perfect development, perfect health, the full measure of days and disobedience to it might slowly spell.out all the inscrutable woes of cancer.

Certain conditions known to exert an influence on the causation of cancer were next dealt with, including age, by which it is fully established that cancer is greatly influenced; sex; X-rays (whose influence upon cell life was considered to be most important); the most important of all, alcohol. Statistics revealed the fact that cancer was twice as frequent among brewers and publicans a,s among clergymen, and that the cancer incidence in any trade varied with the attendant habits as regards alcohol. With regard to these various conditions, Sir Alfred expressed the opinion that clinical experience and experimental pathology threw some ray of hope across the dark sea of malignant disease. Those who were studying the disease in mice reported that in these animals it was quite a frequent occurrence for a grafted cancerous growth, after attaining some size, to slowly shrink and disappear, and in some series of experiments a large proportion of the grafts that had "taken" had, after a period of growth, spontaneously vanished. In regard to various cases of cancer which he had treated at the Middlesex Hospital, he said, though i» some of these cases the disease was not "cured" in the sense of being wholly and permanently removed, yet in several there was a strong reason for thinking that the word "cure" could be justly used. In recording these cases he did not mention the treatments employed because his present purpose was not to vaunt a remedy, but to state a fact—that cancer, even when advanced in degree and of long duration, might get better, and might even get well. "There is," he continued, "cure of cancer apart from operative removal. All therapeutic cures are obtainable only by the working of physiological forces, and the first hope of therapeutic success comes from observation of the efficiency of -unaided Nature to accomplish cures. In the darkness of night it is everything to know that there is a sun towards which the earth is revolving, and that if we fix our eyes on the east we shall soon see the grey promise of dawn and then the many-colored heralds of the golden sun itself. And as the victims of caneer call to us in the dark night of despair, "Watchman, what of the night?" it is much to know that for cancer-stricken man there is also a sun of healing. "When the biologist shall know the laws that govern cell-growth, with a knowledge akin to its sweep and accuracy to that of the astronomer, he will have power—the power to prevent—to control and to cure cancer.