THE RAPID GROWTH OF CANCER.

Waikato Argus, Volume XI, Issue 1098, 14 November 1901, Page 4

THE RAPID GROWTH OF CANCER.

TON DON’S SIGN I DICANT figures. London’s tremendous interest in the question of cancer may well be judged (says the Express) by the following figures, which show an extraordinary growth in the percentage of persons annually dying from this dread disease within the registration county of London : - DEATH BATE EOF. I.ONUON FER 1000 LIVINO. 1851-1800... ';\l 1801-1870... ft 1871-1880... 1881-1890 2 s 1891 .... i r 1892 ' io im 1895 II 1897 1899 . From 42 to -93 per 100(1 is (continues Urn Express) enough to oiw liv. 1 to serious consideration. It must, o* course 1 c rumunber-d that many cancer deaths occurring in the period Ino I—9o w« -fl doumlcss

wrongly returned under the head of tumor oi ether uisem-. Since iB9O the di.v,no.V' of cm < r nas eon more ex »<*»; N-vm h- m.> _lim increase (ms continued steadily. It is for the doctors to decide how far this increase lias been due to tne infectious character of cancer. One fact in the returns for the Country of London seems to point to the communicability of the disease. Id Islington the deaths in 1900 numbered 290, while in Newington there were but 9 ; in Rotherhithe there were 273 ; in St Marlin’s only 10. Where a decrease is so markedly present or absent the spread of it by infection is distinctly suggested. Many doctors have touched on the possibility of cancer being a communicable disease, in a standard work on hygiene edited by Dr. Stevenson and Mr Shirley Murphy ; now head of the Public Health Department of the County of London, Dr. E, Klein, of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, says l lf this view (viz., that this disease is due to the presence and growth of coccidia in the epithelium) be correct, cancer would have to be placed among the infectious or commimicable diseases, ihat cancer is probably of this nature is indicated already, to a certain extent, by well-established facts.’ Dr. Klein classes among his facts the cases in which heredity has established itself as a cause ; the fact that cancer attacking one part distritributes itself to others; and that cancer can be grafted on different parts when it Las once taken root. As against all this lie advances the fact that experimenters have not succeeded in inoculating healthy dogs with or grafting on to them the disease.