CAUSES OF CANCER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 46, 24 February 1936, Page 6

CAUSES OF CANCER.

I read with deliglit Mr. Stone's effort to arrive at the cause of cancer. He makes it all so simple. His "forest denudation" and "bush burning" theories are positively brilliant. If only they had something to do with vitamin deficiency, nitrogen lack and potassium concentration Mr. Stone would be a step further' along his blind alley. It was obvious when this discussion began that physiological bricks of no mean size were to be dropped into your columns, to the great amusement of those who have struggled through even the elements of medicine. Let us look to thefacts on which Mr. Stone bases his eyeopening arguments: (1) Plasma never had "vitality" and it never will. (2) Plasma has 110 power to eliminate potassium. (3) Potassium excess does not enlarge red corpuscles and it never will. (4) Mr. Stone's idea of oxygen supply to the tissues is so inaccurate that a biologist or a dental student on reading it would writhe in agony. (5) Plasma, although blamed for many inexplicable conditions, has never been seriouslv considered as a propagator of cells. If the letter began incorrectly, Tt soon merges into a bizarre inaccuracy. I hope that no one will take hot vapour baths in the hope of removing excess potassium or eat fresh fruit in the hope of altering appreciably the alkalinity of the blood. The alkalinity of the blood is held rigorously within very narrow limits by mechanisms of which your correspondent has obviously never heard. How about leaving cancer research to those workers who are devoting a lifetime to the task? MEDICAL STUDENT.