THE CANCER HOUSE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 121, 23 May 1914, Page 12

THE CANCER HOUSE

AN UNSOLVED ENIGMA DOES DISEASE CLING TO THE WALLS ? The question whether cancer can be acquired through living in a. houso previously inhabited by a sufferer from the disease has for many years engaged tha attention of medical men, and has been givon. renewed attention at Home. The problem may fairly be regarded as one of the unsolved riddles of disease, and may bo expected to afford tnedical mon a subject of controversy until the cause of cancer is discovered, and all doubts concerning tho moans of its propagation sot at rest. In an address delivered recently at Newcastle-on-Tyne, and published in The Lancet, Sir Thomas Oliver, Professor of Medicine at Durham University, reviewed the question of "cancer houses" at considerable length, and furnished some striking instances. He cited the case of a villago in Norway with 800 inhabitants in which, until a few yeurs ago, when, eight coses of the disease occurred, thero was never known to be more than ono cancer patient per annum. These eight cases eeoincd to "group themselves round" a particular sufferer. In a French village of 400 inhabitants 11 deaths, according to Dr. Armando, occurred in seven years, all being located in the same block of houses. Three years later there were 17 cancer patients in. these houses. In another house in a different locality five doaths occurred from cancer in one houso over a period of 30 years. All these patients belonged to different families. A list of 1062 lioutes in Paris in which persons had died of malignant disease wa& drawn up, and a watch instituted. Already in 12 of them ' two successive cases of cancer have been noted. Another remarkable series of cases occurred in a short street in which to. 15 years there died of malignant disease 19 persons and a dog. Several of this houses accounted for more than one case- each. Sir Thomas comments : "As in nearly all the patients there was no hereditary history of the disease, the large- number of deaths . . . hag suggested that the matter is moro than a coincidence." > Mr. D'Arcy Power, in an article in The Practitioner, quoted a remarkable case which was reported by Mr. L. Webb. This related to the history of two cottages built under one roof. In the first of these a man died of cancer. The cottage was then occupied by a married couple. Tho husband died of the disease two years later, and the wife 10 years later. Three maiden ladies then took tho house. Two of these subsequently died of cancer. Mr. D'Arcy Power further quotes a case where three women who, in succession, occupied n particular bedroom, all died of a malignant disease. The remarkable feature of this case was that tho second victim had lived 20 years in the house be-fore she moved to the- infected bedroom, and the third eight years. No further case occurred after tho room had been thoroughly disinfected. Inptancos of the same kind can b& multiplied almost indefinitely, observes Tho Times. There is, for example, a vicarage in the north of England with an evil reputation ac a "cancer bouso," two successive incumbents having died thore of malignant, disease. In n. large house in Somerset whoro a_ man died of cancer many years ago. his wife, his wife s second husband 1 , a member of his family by hia firel wife, and a housekeeper afterwards fell victims to tho disease. It is of course impossible to dogmatise without conclusive evidence. But tho subject undoubtedly is oE sufficiently grave importance, to demand more thorough investigation than it has hitherto received. There must exist, if it could only bo collncted and arranged, an immense body of testimony on tho matter of ' cancer houses" (both for and against the theory) which would be very helpful as an adjunct to presont knowledge of the greatest scourgo ot our civilisation.