CANCER GERM

Evening Star, Issue 18998, 21 July 1925, Page 10

CANCER GERM

FINDING OF A CODE EXPERIMENTS ON CONDEMNED CRIMINALS ADVOCATED. That tho time has arrived when experiments should be made on criminals for further search for the cure of cancer is a suggestion that was made to a ‘ Sun ’ representative by a Christchurch doctor. The discoveries made by Dr Gye and Mr J. E. Barnard in their cancer research have thrilled the world (says tho I‘Sun’), and tho world is looking and hoping for their leading to further discoveries that eventually will result in the finding of a cure. A leading medical man, who was interviewed, said that the first thing I that occurred to him was that the investigators had been able to obtain results only in the case of sarcomatous tumors, but apparently had failed to obtain similar results in the case of carcinomatous tumors, the latter form being by far tho greater part of the disease called cancer. It did not follow that because they had certain results in tho case of sarcoma, these would he applicable to carcinoma. In the event, however, of the investigators being able to get further results it would he the most important stop yet taken towards the finding of a remedy. All so-called cancer cures in the past had failed. A few of them had been bona fide, but most of them bad been humbugs. Tho bona fide ones had failed because it was impossible to obtain a cure for a condition of which the cause was not known, but if the cause could bo found there would he a very strong prospect of finding the cure. There was one further point. The investigators said that tho specificity_of tho specific factor for different species is strict. That is to say, that the virus obtained from tumors of the rabbit would not give rise to cancer in the tissues of the rat. It was naturally impossible, under ordinary conditions, to make inoculation experiments in regard to the growth of tumors in man, and advance in this direction, therefore, must he hampered. It is obvious that, in dealing with a disease which caused such great human mortality, every opportunity should ho used to assist research, and it appeared that the time had come when inoculation experiments should ho permitted on criminals condemned to death. The consent of the criminals probably would ho a necessary part of the procedure, and they could receive compensation therefor. If, for example, a criminal were subjected to successful inoculation, he might receive remission of the death sentence. If inoculation did not occur, and the sentence, therefore, were carried out, a money grant might be made to his friends or relatives. Judging from the present report which has reached the country of Dr Gye’s experiments, it seems that some facilities for further research of tho kind suggested were necessary. Similar suggestions have been made many times in the past, but a curiously perverted sense of humanity has prevented them from being carried into eff cct.