VICTORY OVER CANCER

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 30, 30 October 1929, Page 11

VICTORY OVER CANCER

NOTED SURGEON SAYS IT IS GETTING NEARER DISEASE CURABLE IN MOST FORMS VALUE OF RADIUM TREATMENT (United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Received October 29, 10.20 p.m.) London, October 29. Lord Moynihan, speaking at . Burnley, said victory over cancer was getting nearer and nearer every year. The public ought to realise, he said, that cancer, in so far as it is a local disease, and in so far as surgeons can get at it, it is always curable. Certain forms were not accessible, but when an operation was performed in time a cure could be effected in every case. Many cases of cancer of the tongue, mouth, or breast, could be successfully treated with radium, and this treat- , ment far surpassed the best the surgeon could show, but unless there was the most expert supervision over radium more harm than good could be done. Despite these facts, whereas the general mortality had been reduced by 30 per cent, in twenty years cancer mortality had increased 20 per cent., and one person in seven over 30 years of agedied of cancer. In its attack on’ the disease surgery had 1 reached its limit. It, therefor,e was necessary that something more should be done.

Sir Arbuthnot Lane, speaking at Limehouse, emphasised that the cancer deathrate was highest in towns where people were wealthy. He added that working people did not die of cancer In the same proportion as the rich.

[Lord Moynihan was chairman of the Army Medical Advisory Board from 1916 to 1919, and served as consulting surgeon to the Expeditionary Force in 1914-15. Sir Arbuthnot Lane is consulting surgeon to Guy’s Hospital.]