CANCER CLAIM

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 93, 17 October 1934, Page 18

CANCER CLAIM

THE GERMAN DISCOVER! 7]

OFFICIAL TESTS TO BE MADE

(From "Tho Post's" Representative.)

LONDON, September 14,

Tho Prussian Ministry of the Inter* ior, Berlin, has issued a statement oa Dr. yon Brclinicr's claim to have discovered bacteria which are the cause of cancer and the possibilities of early diagnosis and treatment associated with it. The Ministry announces that the necessary tests will be made by qualified experts with tho utmost possible dispatch, as questions of distinct importance for the national health are involved. Before the application of the suggested methods to persons suffering from cancer comes into question this very exhaustive examination must be completed. Until then, it is held, it would be a serious danger to persons suffering from cancer if they underwent treatment by other than the hitherto tried and tested methods and thereby lost valuable time. A similar line was taken in a statement by Professor Kolle at the Frankfurt Medical Congress. Beferring to the widespread public discussion aroused by Dr. yon Brehmer's announcements, Professor Kolle said:—

"As representatives of science vra know how often, to start with, experiments full of promise of progress hava proved abortive arid how often premature announcements to the general public, going beyond the limits of what has up to the moment been scientifically proved, have awakened hopes among suffering mankind who have afterwards been bitterly disappointed. We must therefore fulfil the duty in the present case too of uttering a warning that these scientific discoveries in particular upoa which new cure treatments are based require the most thoroughgoing examination on the broadest foundations before definite expectations can be pinned to them. From the explanations .of Dr. Schilling we have gathered that he, also had been ablo to produce cultures of. the micro-organism isolated by Dr. yon Brehmer in accordance with the discoverer's instructions and thus to check this portion of Dr. yon Brehmer's results. "With this Herr Schilling wanted, to open the way for further scientific research without meaning, or being able thereby, to confirm the much more farreaching theories and conclusions pf Dr. yon Brehmer. We are also conscious of the duty of taking up the experiments and results of Dr. yon Brehmer immediately and with all serious determination, in order to clear up, with all the means at the disposal of scientific research, the questions raised by. him which wo still regard with doubt.''