CANCER RESEARCH

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 88, 14 April 1930, Page 10

CANCER RESEARCH

SPADE WORK FINISHED

DOCTOR BECfG RETURNS

(By T«f«iraph.) (Special to "The Evtnlng Post.") AUCKLAND, This Day. Bringing with him rats and r .cc infected with cancer, Dr. N. M. Begg, of Dunedin, returned by the Port Hardy from England, Where he has been doing cancer research work. Under engagement to. the New Zealand branch of the British Empire cancer campaign Dr. Begg has come back to the Dominion after spending eight years in cancer research work in London. Ho left for Dunedin last night. His work wijl be carried on at the Medical School of the Otago University. ■ ■ The discovery of the cause of cancer is the aim of the research on which Dr. Begg has been engaged, and which will continue to occupy him. He said on Saturday that the treatment of human sufferers from disease would also be given by the latest methods, subject to'justification by the quantity of radium available. After obtaining his medical degree at Otago University ten years ago, Dr. Begg' spent two years at Timaru before proceeding to London. Thero he obtained a post in connection with the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, which htt3 its laboratory in London. That organisation has been in operation for more than 25 years. The Work of the past' 25 years had been steadily progressive, but a lot had been spadework. , UNIVERSAL DISEASE. •Dr. Begg said that the position was now fairly clear for effective research. It had been established that cancer, was not a disease of civilisation, as had once been suggested, meaning that cancer was confined to civilised peoples. Cancer had been found to be universal. It occurred among civilised and Uncivilised, cold, temperate, and tropical zones, and in Jtah, sheep, horses, mice, rats, and other animals. Small animals provide material upon which Dr.' Begg conducts his research work. Thus it is that he brought with him a number of mice and rats infoctod with cancer by the grafting of tumours. Tumours from chickens have also been brought in dried form sealed in glass tubes. A cancer tumour from a 'chicken Mas been found to bo very infective in comparison with that from other creatures, and can be easily'transported in this form.

"Cancer in chickens is most likely, almost certainly, caused by a virus or invisible organism," said Dr. Begg. "The same has not been proved for other animals, and that is one of the difficulties in the work." Experiments had shown that cancer could not be transferred from species to species, thougli it could be carried to another of the same kind. Though it could be passed from mouse to mouse, or from chicken to chicken, it could not be passed from mouse to chicken. , ■

Begarding the progress made toward the research goal, the cause of cancer, Dr. Begg said that personally he thought the Gye theory of a virus was the most rational. However, it had only been proved for chickens and had yot to be proved for animals.

Burgery, if adopted at a sufficientlyearly stage, was the best method so far available for the treatment of cancer, the doctor said. Radium came next, and it was yielding a fair percentage of success in certain cases only. There was no medical treatment of cancer yet except one involving the use of a lead compound which was being tried in Bristol. Patients treated thero had had relief, but" whethor it was only temperoray relief and not a cure itt was not yet possible to say.