CANCER RESEARCH

Evening Post, Volume 105, Issue 4, 6 January 1928, Page 7

CANCER RESEARCH

, IMPERIAL FUND REPORT A POSSIBLE CLUE (From "Tho Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 25th November. This week the 25th annual report (1926-27) of tho Imperial Cancer Research Fund has been issued. It carries on the story of patient investigation which for a quarter of a century has been in progress at Queen square. Unhappily (writes the medical correspondent of "The Times") there is as yet no indication tha'- the goal of tho work is in sight. Dr. Murray, the director of the fund, deals at some length with the disputed question whether or not cancer is a solitary invader of the body, that is to say, whether or not two or more cancers can begin together and co-exist as do, for example, warts. Dr. Murray believes that the evidence he has obtained justifies him in accepting the "solitary" view. This is a matter of some importance ..cause if it be true that a second cancer cannot easily grow in a body in which a cancer is already established, then presumptive evidence exists that the body does make an attempt to rid itself of cancer, and hope is engendered of being able some day to make use of this natural healing power. Dr. Murray offers some observations on work which, he thinks, tends to confirm tho researches of Dr. Gye. On the other hand, as there is reason to think, work, conducted in another research centre in London has not tended to confirm these researches, but rather to negative them. It is evident that no final views about Gyc's work can, even yet, be formulated. An interesting feature of tho report is the account given of the views of Professor Warburg, of Berlin, about tho nature of tho cancer process. CLUE TO THE CAUSE. According to tho Liverpool correspondent of the "Daily Express," a clue to the cause of cancer has been discovered at the department of oceanography at the Liverpool University—which gives strong support to the conclusions reached by Professor Blair-Bell, of Liverpool—and may result in important developments in the treatment of cancerous growths. The discovery was made ' by the department while they wore studying the life of succulina, a kind of barnacle, no thought of cancer being in the minds of the investigators. Dr. J. Johnston, professor of the department, is reported to have said that they had found that tho phenomena in tho growth of the barnacle, which starts life as a free swimming larva, were closely related to the biological condition known as cancerous. "The barnacle develops into a cypris, to do which it had to settle on the soft part between the joints of a crab," ho said. "We discovered that after this a wonderful thing, happened—the barnacle reverses its order of development, becoming embryonic once more and forming a tumour in the crab's intestines. The process, is again reversed afterwards, and tlio creature breaks through the walls of tho crab, becoming a succulina. Professor Blair-Bell has shown that cancer is a result of a condition of colls in the human body which take on a new mode and beeomo malignant. Exactly the samo things appear to happen in the succulina, and there is no doubt that the study of the barnacle will make an important contribution to our knowledge of cancer."