The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, JULY 5, 1911. THE CONQUERING OF CANCER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 9, 5 July 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, JULY 5, 1911. THE CONQUERING OF CANCER.

From the beginning of medicine up to the end of last century cancer has been an impenetrable mystery. Is is only in the past decade that progress., true unmistakable advance, has been made towards the final unravelling of the mystery. The results of work recently done at the laboratories of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London are able to show convincing proof that the veil of mystery which has too long shrouded this terrible scourge is at last gradually being lifted. The important discoveries of the Imperial Research Fund specialists . have lately been placed before the pub-' lie. ''The cancer engrafted in this mouse will fail to develop and he will throw off the disease, because we immunised him before the living cancer cells were implanted in his tissues." No single sentence could more vividly bring out the vast strides which have been made in cancer research in the last decade. Coming from Dr. E. F. Bashford, the director of the laboratory of the Imperial Cancpr Research Fund, in a .casual description of some of the routine work at the laboratories under his control, it shows that at last progress, true, undeniable advance, has been made towards that ultimate goal which the whole civilised world is anxiously awaiting—man's mastery over his greatest scourge, cancer. To the untrained layman, impatient for an immediate cure for the disease in man, the question of whether a mouse can or cannot be artificially protected from engrafted cancer may seem beside the point. To the medical profession and to the scientists who freely acknowledge the abysmal ignorance universally prevailing even ten years ago on the whole subject, the discovery of a means to prevent the spread and further development of a malignant growth, even though artificially produced and in a lower animal, marks a new era in the study of cancer. To understand just how much has been done and how much still remains to be done, it is necessary first to recall for a moment the position in which the scientific world stood as to cancer ten years ago. Many leading authorities in medicine—surgeons, physicians and bacteriologists, for example—inclined strongly to the belief ihp.t the disease was of microbic origin, that it was caused by a germ, and vva» therefore communicated from one sufferer to another. Numbers of significant facts lending color to this theory wer» put forward. In accord with this view it was argued that the bedding and bedclothes on which a cancer patient had died should be burned and that the house he had inhabited was a danger to the community. On the other hand, eminent authorities on the characters c/t normal and diseased tissues, histologista and pathologists, disputed with ono another as to the possibility of a causative influence residing in the body cell* themselves.. Volumes had been written on the question of whether the cancel cell was descended from a normal, healthy cell of the adult or from the pro geny of cells which had retained the properties of the cells of the unborn child Serums and anti-toxins prepared from cancer tissues themselves and from all sorts of extraneous organisms were being boomed as probable cures ercn by men of some standing. Among the more conservative members of the profession deep pessimism prevailed. "No one will ever invent a cure for this terrible scourge, which statistics show is on the rapid increase in all civilised parts of the world." Then the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, inaugurated in 1900-1, stepped into the arena of active investigation in October. 1902, and without any fuss or blare of trumpets said: "Let us leave the question of cure and method of onset for a time, until we have learned something more about the natural history of cancer, its methods of growth and the mutual effects- cancerous tissues and the healthy tissues surrounding a new growth have on one another." The mouse was finally chosen as the chief subject for experiment. lie was cheap, bis normal period of life was a short one, and he multiplied rapidly. The cancers which had been occasionally observed in mice, moreover, proved on minute examination to be practically identical, both microscopically and in their way of spreading, with similar growths in man. Of course, a mouse is not a man, and an artificialy induced cancer is not a spontaneous growth,but the range of new possibilities opened up by these experiments is boundless. Briefly, a method has been discovered by which a mouse's tissues can be protected against cancer growth that a subsequently implanted cancer is unable to develop and grow in its body. Although the "why" of the process still utterly baffles the investigators, experiments have proved that, in artificially engrafted cancer, at any rate, the previous injection of norm, I }] mouse-blood or normal mouse-tissue —, e.g., skin, spleen, etc.—into the mouse to be -inoculated has the result of rendering his tissues practically immune against cancer growth. After the amazing success of these protection inoculations the next step naturally was to attempt io modify the tissues-»fter the

artificial growth had already been induced, so that such a growth would dwindle and die. While the results on these lines ha ve not yet been as striking or as satisfactory, they lend strong hopes that the investigators are, at any rate, advancing along lines which may ultimately lead to the evolving of an actual eurq. While so far it has only been possible to "hold up" or diminish the growth of an already established engrafted cancer under exceptional conditions, inoculations' with the blood serum or skin emulsion arc found greatly to retard, if not to prevent, the development of secondary nodules in other parts of the body. More than this, if a second cancer is engrafted on a mouse whien is already suffering from one engrafted malignant growth, a skin emulsion inoculation given after the first cancer implantation, but previous to the second, has an easily recognised deterrent effect on the development of the latter tumor. Without exception, all the preliminary work has shown that the experimental transference of cancer can only be carried out by transplanting live cancer cells, which by their continued growth finally beome a full-grown tumor. It is practically certain that a similar transference of living cells from one individual to another cannot be the cause of the great frequency of cancer in man. This brings us to one of the most important conclusions reached to date by the investigators—i.e., that a cancerous tumor contains no virus or germ foreign to the normal living tissue. One of the most terrible thoughts which can enter the mind of a sufferer from this awful scourge is the possibility that he may be a source of danger to others about him. However hardly a certain portion of the general public may judge the Imperial Cancer Research Fund for not having yet perfected a cure for the disease, 'they cannot help but appreciate one result of its labors—i.e., the practically unassailable proof that cancer is not catching. After careful observation during eight years (more than three times the average length of a mouse's existence) no increased liability to spontaneous cancer has been noticed among the healthy uninoculated mice. Considering that no race of mankind is exempt, that the disease is found in all vertebrate life down to marine fish living in a state of Nature, it is worth a great deal to us to know conclusively that cancer arises in each individual simply through some as yet not understood transformation of healthy tissue, and that one case of cancer has absolutely no relation to any other. Next to the terrible dread of catching the disease from some dear relative whom affection and duty demand that-one shall nurse and tend intimately, is the equally horrible nightmare of the widely accepted hereditary character of the disease. Here, again, as far as iB humanly possible, the Imperial Cancer Research investigators are able to set our minds at ease. The commonly accepted belief among the lay public that the disease is congenital or hereditary, that the "taint" of cancer is handed down from parent to offspring, would be an added misery to anyone who had seen a near relative'a victim of the scourge. A mouse who was the offspring of a cancerous mother was first bred with another mouse, one of whose parents had-also developed the disease. A healthy offspring of this mating was then bred with another mouse of cancerous parentage. The life histories of the young of these crossings is carefully followed up, the point being to determine whether, after generations of breeding together of mice of cancerous stock, the tendency towards cancer developmenfin succeeding litters is increased. The evidence obtained proves beyond question that any inborn general predisposition to cancer is so slight that it is practically a negligible quantity. Another comforting result of this investigation is tho knowledge that the mouse bred from •amjerous stock is apparently not a bit more suitable for the inoculation and growth of cancer than is a similarly aged mouse of healthy stock. In other words weighty presumptive evidence has been obtained suggesting strongly that no matter how many cases of cancer have developed in an individual's immediate family, the danger of his having inherited a general constitution liable to the disease is infinitesimal, while his likelihood of contracting it de novo is no greater than that of his neighbor who comes from a cancer-free stock.