CANCEROUS PATIENTS IN THE REFUGE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 7443, 14 August 1895, Page 3

CANCEROUS PATIENTS IN THE REFUGE.

[TO 'I'HH EDITOH.]

Sib.— There are a few statements in your artiole on the above subject which appeared in last ovening's issuo to which 1 bhoutd like to take exception.

You seeta to assume tint patients .-uffericg from cancer that haa advanced too far to render relief by turgioal interference are excluded from the hospital, and that this is a new rale. The unfortunate sufferers from the dreadful disease are excluded in accordance with a by-luw which provider) thtit no patient suffering from an incurable complaint shall be admitted into the hospital, and this by-law hae been in force since the hospital was opened, aud whilst this law exists it is not competent for either the com 7 mittee or the stuff to disobdy it. If such patients were treated in the hospital in Dr. Menzies' time, it was m contravention of the by-laws of the institution, i«nd I venture to think that the treatment of such patients was the exoeption aad not tho rulo, Uome years ago 3'r. Menzies wai asked to explain why a oertain patient suffering from canoer had been allowed to die in the refuse instead of being admitted into iho hoipital, and his defence was that at Home euoh would be tieattd in a workhouse infirmary, und tho refuge ttood in tn&t position in Sapiar. Whether cancer is on the iniroase or not, is very debatable Borne even assort that the reverse is the case. The infeotiausnois of the disease ia unproven ; every attempt to inoouUto cancer both ia Germany and England ha 3 given negative results The relation bstwaen canoes and tha di tate you refer to is extremely doubtful, aud the disease can scarcely be called contagious in itH tenhuy form. No ordinary contact will oonvey tho disease, and it is only transmitted in a roundabout fashion that it ii impossible to partioularieo in a paper intended for tho general reader. To partake of the meat or milk of oancerous animals is a dingnnting idea, and should be universally condemned, but I am not euro that it is dangerous. I hope that you will not tako this letter in a spirit of autagoninm, for with your well-meant efforts to uea the best done for the unfortunate sufferers who have not a superfluity of tbia world's goods, and to render their last days as painleia as possible, every humane perjon must sympathise. —I am, etc., Fbkd. db Lislb., Napier, Aug. 14th, 1806,