CANCER AND CONSUMPTION

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23055, 25 June 1940, Page 14

CANCER AND CONSUMPTION

• ro the' editor op the press. Sir, —In a recent issue of a Home paper it is stated that the .president of the Royal College of Surgeons, Mr Hugh Lett, said that cancer was hot a disease of civilisation, but affected all faces in every part of the world. It was now known that cancer, even cancer of the brain, could be caused by the application of certain pure chemical substances or by 'physical agents, such as X-rays and radium. Some forms of cancer, therefore, could

now be prevented if appropriate precautions were taken, a matter of great moment to those occupied with X-rays and radium, cotton spinners, chimney sweeps, and those engaged in tarspraying operations. At the annual conference of the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, held recently in Belfast, Ireland, it was stated that 75 per cent, of all surgical tuberculosis cases were of bovine origin; that no baby, even the child of a tubercular mother, ■ was born with the disease, nor could any child get it unless in contact with an effective bacillus; that by modern methods lives are being saved which, 40 years ago, would have perished by the thousand.—-Yours, etc., A.M. Lyttelton, June 24, 1940.