A RAY OF HOPE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 230, 26 September 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

A RAY OF HOPE.

IS CANCER CURABLE?

LONDON, August 7

If there is one disease to * which all human flesh is- heir that possesses real terrors for the majority of humanity it is cancer. To the man who discovers a cure for this most dreaded disease a statue in every; capital in the world would not be too great an honour. But before the cure can be found it is necessary to ascertain the cause of this growing scourge, whose ravages are undoubtedly on the increase. Experiment* aiming at its cure with X rays, radium, violet water, molasses, or electricity are, of course, all worthy of consideration, but the certain way to put investigators on the track of cancer's cure is to discover .cancer's cause. And that up to the present has been, as Sir James Crichton-Browne has said, "a. dark, terrible, and inscrutable mystery." That ifc will not long remain so is a* hope wo are to some extent justified , in harbouring. For some time past Brs. Bashford and Murray, the eminent specialists appointed by the Committee of the Cancer Research Fund, have been wholly engaged in investigating the cause. of this universal disease, arid.it is stated that within the past, few-days they have made a discovery of the utmost "importance. The nature of their discovery is being kept secret, but that the investigators and many eminent men of science in. the secret believe Drs. Murray and Bashford have discovered the cause of cancer is plain to anyone who reads tho extremely cautious announcements that have been made. That caution should mark the that have been allowed publicity was only to be • expected. Disappointment has more than once followed the hopeful belief that a great medical problem had been solved, notably when there was a , general imnrcssion that Dr. Koch's discoveries had brought the abolition of tuberculosis within measurable distance. In the present instance, it is not even claimed so far that the cause of cancer has been definitely ascertained. All that is asserted is that a-' considerable advance has been made upon anything hitherto achieved, and that the ' prospects of a complete solution of the puzzle have become distinctly bright. That akme is good news; and the fact that there is no sensational claim that cancer's cause has been tracked doAvn is in itself reassuring.

At the annual meeting of the fund a few days ago, Mr Balfour made an urgent appeal for an additional £ 50.000, in order, it is understood, to raise the capital to a point at which an assured income of £3000 a year, can be 'obtain-, to obtain the services of other bacteriologists to assist Messrs BashTord arid Murray. The appeal was made unive-r-, sally, for it is not only in England "thiyt ' cancer is making, rapid headivaj.. lit tlie Old Country, from ISGI t0.1805,..the deaths per million from the dread diaoA'Se were 368, and a > steady increase , waa observed until, in 1899, the deaths fvoin cancer had increased to S2O per million. Al over the Continent and in America the figures increase. In France the deatli-rate from cancer, according to the latest available figures, was 104 per in Switzerland —the refuge of the,dying—the rate was 132 per hundred thousand. In 1000 the total number of deaths from cancer in. England and Wales numbered 26,721. Among males the mortality was equal to a rate of 072 per million iiving of that sex, and ani'ong females to a rate of 975 per million. . The mortality among males exceeded the decennial average by 16 per cent., and among females by 10 per cent. The figures for Australasiaare not available at the moment, but I do. not think t shall be overshooting the • mark in stating that it i 3 probably more prevalent in the Antipodes than in the Old Country. RADIUM AND CANCER. The use of radium and X-rays in the' treatment of cancer is on the increase, and, regarding the application of radium rays, Dr. Alexander Bell, the inventor of the telephone, makes what may prove to be a valuable suggestion. In some experiments performed in Washington, Dr. Sowere , found that the Rontgen rayfl, • and those emitted by radium, appeared to hatve a marked curative effect upon external cancers, but when trie 3 deep-seated cancers failed to produce satisfactory results. Dr. Bell, therefore, wrote to Dr. Sowers, suggesting that one reason for this failure might -be the fact £hat the rays had to pas 9 through.' healthy tissues to various depths in order to reach the cancerous matter. Th© Orocke's tube from which the Rontgen: rays are emitted is, of course, too bulky, to be admitted into the middle of a mass of cancer; but Dr. Bell sees no reason why a ting fragment of radium, sealed up in a fine glass tube, should not b.e inserted. into the:very heart of the cancer, thus acting directly upon, the diseased material, and he suggested to l>. Sowers that it would be worth! . wnile making experiments along this liae. Dr. Sowers replied he thought such! experiments should be made, and , - had no doubt "they would prove successful in many cases where we now have failures."