The Cancer Campaign

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22110, 4 June 1937, Page 10

The Cancer Campaign

In his presidential address to the annual meeting of t the British Empire Cancer Campaign Society Sir James Elliott reminded the public of the dreadful gravity of the problem which his society faces, " the gravest medical problem "of the present day," as he described it. His statistics emphasised a truth which is to thousands of people the source of an anxiety impossible to dismiss at will and not to be dismissed even by regular medical examination, though it may be checked and relieved. There is no need to repeat Sir James Elliott's figures, which were printed yesterday; but few readers will hot have been sadly impressed by his reflection on the social injury of a disease which attacks so heavily the middle period of life, carrying off men and women at the stage when they are most needed by their families and best equipped for their part in public and private business. Sir James's argument that the cancer campaign is everybody's business is unanswerable. It is everybody's duty to help, so far as he can, in the effort to understand the danger and its causes and to meet them; and if this help may usefully take the form of money subscribed to the campaign for extended research and improved facilities' for treatment, that is not its limit. It is the duty of the Government and the hospital boards, mainly, to see that cancer patients requiring special treatment "gravitate to the central "clinics, where proper facilities for treatment " are alone available "; but it is also for public opinion to exercise its pressure so as to hasten such organisation and reorganisation as are necessary to that end. It is also for the public, individually, to co-operate with the medical profession in all such measures as minimise the risks and the miseries of cancer; for example, by making possible those early diagnoses which give the best chance of cure, and by learning what can be learned about predisposing factors and general and particular precautions and by applying the knowledge. But it may be suggested that the Cancer Campaign Society itself does not fully discharge its duty in this respect. Between one annual meeting and another too little is heard of its work and too little of that work is directly aimed to inform, advise, warn, and encourage the public. It is no more true that nothing is known about cancer than that nothing i known about the life of Shakespeare. It is not true that the medical profession is helpless and can only plead with the public to be patient. It is true that false hopes have been raised and doubtful theories started; but it is also true, and more important, that much is certainly known that could usefully and persistently be imparted. It seems not unfairly critical to sap that the society could help itself and helb the nuhlie hv doing more

to educate the layman. If this means disturbing the fool's paradise of some, it means valuable enlightenment and greater safety to others. To some it must mean life instead of