PREVALENCE OF CANCER

Evening Star, Issue 18979, 29 June 1925, Page 2

PREVALENCE OF CANCER

VALUE OF FRESH FOODS r l lie suggestion Ilia! the increase in cancer eases was merely apparent and due to more aeeiiraie diagnosis was re■ futed by I).- .1, )’. Hastings dining a leelure in tin; Auckland 'iown Hall t.'onceri ('haiiii-cr, under the auspices of Ihe .New Zealand food Deform and Anti-Cancer League. In 189 L it was estimated (hat 692 people in every million in (Heat Britain suffered Imm cancer, said Dr Hastings, but thirty years later, in 1921, (he figure had lisen to 1,215 a million. Dining the last forty years cancer of the tongue had increased 223 per cent.

Theories with regard to the causes of cancer were, mentioned lay tin; speaker, bleat eating, tobacco smoking, and alcohol drinking could not I-c primary causes of cancer, nor could il be caused primarily by injury or irritation, but if cancerous tissue wore present flic discam might bo stimulated or aggi'evaled by injury or irritation. He believed that poisoning of the protoplasm was the fundamental cause of cancer, Pcfeienco to the harmful inilucnco of constipation, preservatives in food, dyes, and preparations containing arsenic, was made, Ur Hastings staling that these things caused poisoning in (he system. Haw and fresh foods were of value, particularly those loutaining an abundance of vifamines. Much ol our fund was over-cooked. Haw vegetables, fresh milk, and fresh fruit wete of particular value. Defined and canned locals, (alien in excess, were dangerous. It was xvoil known that the Irish people, most of whom had cows, and lived primarily on fresh milk and vegetables, were a sturdy, healthy race. Tho lecturer said that doctors would much rather prevent disease than cure it., though (hey were, often accused of contrary motives. “ 1 would never advise anybody who wanted his son to make money quickly to lot his son enter the medical profession,” said Dr Hastings. It was estimated that there wore about 5,000 doctors out ol employment in England. .Some wen; sleeping on the Thames Embankment. There were too many doctors, and a similar position threatened to arise in Australasia. Medicine as a. money-mak-ing profession was done.