CURRENT TOPICS.

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

CURRENT TOPICS.

COMPORTING KNOWLEDGE. While all this ceaseless laboratory work has been going on at headquarters, the Research Fund has laid toll on hospitals and health authorities in all parts of the world for further first-hand evidence aa to the prevalence of the disease. The statistics which liavc been thus obtained absolutely dispose, of the recent widespread belief that the disease is limited to civilised white men, and that the increasing luxury of our way of life directly leads to its development. Another public bugbear which lias been removed by the last few years' relentless following up of every possible sidelight om the subject in all parts of the globe i,- that of the alleged increase of the disease. The alarmist who apparently takes a ghoulish delight in telling us that year after year the disease becomes more common, can hardly continue his scarcmongering in the face of the facts which the world-wide investigations of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund have revealed. They prove beyond dispute that this alleged increase is simply due to the greater accuracy of diagnosis in the present day, the greater care taken in recording cases, the greater n<»es we attain, and the greater thoroughness shown in hunting for the disease. Another theory which has been removed from the realm of supposition to that of positive fact is that of the important part played in cancer formation by chronic irritation of living tissues, .such as by the rubbing or pressure of a foreign body, or by the action of heat or of chemicals. Irrefutable evidence has been obtained from all parts of the world, proving that the liability of cancer to develop in any particular part of the bodydepends less on peculiarities of climate, soil, diet and of race than on the external irritants the habits of the people impress on their bodies. Thousands of operations for the removal of growths at all stages of their development, have been performed with nil the attention to detail that eoukl possibly be afforded to a human being. These have proved con-

clusively that profound relief (shown by tho absence of recurrence for periods equal to one-third of the total life of the mouse) may be confidently hoped for if the operation is undertaken in time. One of the most dangerous contentions of quacks, that removal by operation encourages the development of secondary growths, has thus been directly negatived, More than this, the experiments have afforded definite proof that the earlier the removal of the original growth take 9 place, tho greater is the possibility of non-recurrence. We now know that all the constitutional features of cancer can be reproduced 'by inoculating a pin's head of tissue, and equally prevented by cutting it out. These experiments by themselves, in that they have settled once for all that the earliest possible surgical removal in man is the only rational treatment as yet evolved, should, when their significance is fully understood by the public, be the means of saving thousands of human lives every year. They have caused leading surgeons to revolutionise their practice in regard to cancer of the tongue, and to remove as cancerous at once growths which formerly they would have observed for months as pre-cancer-ous lesions liable to become cancer. To know that cancer is not on the increase, that the risk of inheriting it Is so slight as practically to be negligible, that the disease cannot be spread from one person to another ( as can smallpox or typhoid,l that cancer houses do not exist, and that early and radical removal by operation, instead of hurrying the developing of the deadly secondary growths, will invariably Stave off the disease temporarily at least, and without exception the only treatment which can he recommended in our present t late of knowledge of the disease—all these are facts the full understanding of which will be of countless benefit to mankind. That they are now advanced from theories to established facts is largely the result of the work which has been carried out in the laboratories of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in the past eight years.

POOR LITTLE BRITAIN! Our Attorney-General (Dr. Sir J. G. Findlay, K.C.) is unfortunately only just ' getting into his stride" as a public instructor to our poor relatives at Home, when he must leave them to return to New Zealand, "where freedom is a more real thing." Our gifted apostle, who consented probably against his will to sojourn in the eradie of the race for a short spell, has found work to his hand among the denizens of a benighted country which has not any freedom. They seem to have some sort of a monstrosity in the Old Country which the learned knight says is "a barren negative thing called British liberty," and it appears that the Scottish pioneers " who peopled New Zealand," never having had any liberty, brought it to New Zealand and planted it in order that Sir John (who accepted a title from the slaves) might take shoots Home to show to the wretched folk who have never lived in New Zealand. On another occasion Sir John has told plain John what Imperialism really is. It is a plant grown in Wellington, and was never. heard of in benighted Britain until it was introduced by him. "Telling a man in need," trumpeted the clarion voice of John Bull's teacher, "was like telling him in a waterless desert to quench his thirst." The germ of every idea for the betterment of the people of this country originated in Britain. Its most remarkable men have been Britons. Every institution has been made on British patterns. It could have no freedom but for Britain. It could have no Imperialism but for Britain. The attitude of Sir Jolin Findlay in "talking at" Britons and instructing them is very like the attitude of the first standard infant who sots his headmaster a lesson. The "negative thing called British liberty" is the positive thing that makes it possible for Sir John Findlay to get around in safety. If New Zealand will lend Sir John to the poor, played-out old cradle of the race, he mav reform it out of all semblance to the shattered slave state that has carried real freedom into every corner of the earth. Gifted orators from afar generally inflict their sermons on Britons, because Britons do not deny the freedom that gifted orators say is lackin" in the Empire's birthplaco. °