CANCER.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19623, 20 May 1929, Page 3

CANCER.

RESEARCH IN NEW SOUTH WALES. Cancer of the tongue and of the liver are on the decrease in Australia. This cheering fact emerges from the survey published by Dr. J. H. L. Cumpston, Commonwealth _ DirectorGeneral of Health, in the Journal of the New South Wales Cancer KeAs an offset to this, Dr Cumpston publishes figures showing that the increase in Australian cancer mortality since 1908 is chiefly due to growths of the digestive tract. There has also been an increase nr-cancer of tbe lung and of the skin. But there is definite hope now for many sufferers as long as a diagnosis is -made early enough. _ One new sheet-anchor is radium. Dr. Arthur Burrows, Commonwealth Radium Specialist, shows that radium treatment is particularly effective in skin-cancers and rodent ulcers, in cancer of the tongue, and internal cancers in women. Only a few years ago a tongue-can-cer, unless seen, in the earliest stages, was "hopeless." As medical students were taught, a death-warrant. Dr. Burrows publishes Belgian figures 'in Belgium cases have been watched over a sufficient period) to show that in 48 per cent, of cases treated, the growth disappeared entirely. Similarly, with internal cancer m women—early cases showed 40 to 60 per cent, success, late cases 15 to 20 per cent. ■ _;

PAPER THAT WILL NOT BURN. ♦ ; A paper that does not burn has been discovered. The German inventor, Mr Franz Franck, gave a demonstration recently. He took a sheet of ordinary newspaper, crumpled it into a ball, and wrapped this highly combustible object in a sheet of his fireproof paper. Thus protected, he held it for a few minutes, in the flame of a laboratory blast lamp hot enough to melt a glass windowpane. Not only did the fireproof wrapping survive but the ordinary paper inside was not even scorched.