Is Cancer Contagious?

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 18, 1 May 1902, Page 15

Is Cancer Contagious?

At a meeting of the Budget Committee of the Reichßtag, eayß the Morning Pott's Berlin correspondent, the representative of the Government stated that the Berlin committee for the investigation of cancer had received from German doctors materials embracing more than 12,000 descriptions of the disease. It has now been positively established, he said, that cancer was not hereditary, and that it was contagious. There existed, for instance, localities in which the disease was constantly reappearing. The contagion, the Government representative continued, is not communicable through the medium of plants. Many animals, especially dogs and cats, suffer from cancer. Horses and cattle are little, if at all, affected by it. It is now intended to reserve, in addition to the institute in Frankfort, two departments of the Charity Hospital in Berlin for the investigation and treatment of cancer.