The Genesis of Cancer.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4878, 16 November 1894, Page 2

The Genesis of Cancer.

It is now contended very power. fully by Dr. Barwell, surgeon to tho Charing Gross Hospital, that cancel' is not, as many have believed, due to a specific microbe, and is not in any respect infectious or contagious, although it may be communicated from ono to another part of the body of tlio same person, That is to say that ono cancerous lip may infect the opposite lip, but would not; infect tho lip of another person, and persons nursing a cancerous patent run not tho slightest.risk of con. tagion, So, at least, says this high authority. This may as. well bo generally known, as anxiety is often felt on this point by those' whoso duty compols them to attend upon patients suffering from cancer. The doctor utterly disputes tho alleged analogy between cancer and tuber-• cule. The latter lias;its discovered microbe, can be reproduced be inoculation, and is certainly Cancer cannot bo commnriic&tojj by inoculation, and is; projfl to. bo non-infectious, microbe that can bo points out tho frequency with which.cancer; fofjINH sovero injury such'nsjbruiso'orfiM ture, and tho fact that malignam tumours aro composed of cells wlncl havo "mergedall other fuuetions in that of roprodnction," tho causo of this strango' ''superabundant', cell reproduction " having'been 1 long and still, being." tho baffling object of intouso investigation."; It was oxpected and. almost hoped that tils cause_ would have been found to bo parasitic, but the idea seems toibo completely demolished by Dr <Barwells argument. Otago Daily Times' correspondent, , ; ' ■