CANCER TREATMENT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9020, 6 January 1908, Page 4

CANCER TREATMENT.

What promises to be 1 an important discovery in electro-surgery has been made (says the Paris correspondent of the "Daily Chronicle") by Dr. Keating Hart, of Marseilles. It is the curing of cancer by means of electricity. The method itself is called fulguration, based on the Latin for lightning. The principle for electric treatment in the cure of cancer is not new, but the discovery of Dr. Hart, who used it as an auxiliary in conjunction with surgery, is distinctly new. He read a paper on the subject before the Congress, which evoked much interest, and passing from theory to practice, at an operation performed at the Broca Hospital for Women, gave a demonstration of the method of the new treatment. To begin with, Dr, Hart treats cancer by ordinary surgical means, utilising fulguration as a valuable healing agent. Prior to the first incision, and while the patient is under an anaesthetic, he directs upon the cancerous growth, and by means of an appartus of enormous voltage, a high-tension high-frequency electrical spark. Again, after the operation has been carried out, the diseased part removed, and the vessels ligatured, tin electric spark is again applied. Under its influence the diseased tissues soften, the pain which arose from the disease disappears, and the surgical wound heals rapidly. In cases already treated by this method the malignant growth was completely eradicated, and there has been no recrudescence; but perhaps the most remarkable results were obtained where, owing to the position of the disease, it has been found impossible to operate. For example, at Marseilles a woman of 50 was suffering from cancer in the head, in the region of the frontal bone. Operation was out of the question, so treatment by fulguration was tried. After the first application the attendant pain ceased entirely. Healing of the diseased tisues followed successive applications of electricity, and in three months the growth had completely disappeared. The recent operations at the Broca Hospital were witnessed by many leading surgeons, including Professor Pozzi, Drs. Oudin and Loevvy (of Paris), Waddell (of Sydney), and Greville (of London). The surgeons present were very much impressed.