CANCER FELON TRACKED

Evening Star, Issue 19044, 12 September 1925, Page 13

CANCER FELON TRACKED

AH AUAZIH& ACHIEVEMENT WHAT THE BiSOOVEBY HEADS When the nows that a secret assassin lias been arrested becomes known, men breathe again. That was the feeling which thrilled through tho world (writes “ A Doctor ” in tho ‘Sunday Chronicle’) when it was learned that the germ of cancer had been found at last, that the identity of this murderer of millions had boon established, and that never again would the impenetrable veil of secrecy behind which hitherto be has worked afford him protection. Doctors, while sharing in this sense of relief, experienced also a sense of deep wonder. Because, until the very hour of the discovery, many of the greatest students of cancer believed that it was not caused by a germ at all. They held that a tumor was a growth like a plant, and they had hundreds ol reasons for that view. Thanks to the wonderful detective work of Dr Oyo and Mr Barnard., the discoverers of the now cancer germ, we can now say that behind every tumor lurks this secret enemy—the real foo. Nor docs tho murderer work alone. He has an accomplice. That is tho second part of the great new discovery, and perhaps the most important of all. Tho accomplice is more mysterious, more difficult to find oven, than tho murderer himself. Yet it is now known that without his help tho cancer germ is powerless. In other words, fho accomplice opens the doors and windows of the house so that the assassin may creep in. That is not a fanciful picture, but the exact truth. For whereas the cancer germ floats about in the air, and is found nearly everywhere, the accomplice lives in the house, within the body itself. That is why yon and T have so tar escaped this terrible disease; there is no necompliec at work in nnr bodies marly to open the door and let the enemy in. THE ACCOMPLICE. Of what nature is the accomplice? Wo must still answer this question with a shake of the head; wo do not know. Hut wo do know now that the accomplice is present in every cancerous tumor. if an extract of a tumor is made, the accomplice-substance (or “specific substance ”) will bo found in tho extract. If a few drops of this extract are inixed with cancer germs and injected into tho body of an animal, a cancer will begin to grow in that animal’s body, always provided that the extract was made from a cancer growing in an animal of tho same species. That moans, of course, that there are different kinds of accomplices for different kinds of animals. Tho murderer enters one kind of house, so to speak, by the help of servants; bo enters another kind of bouse by tho help of caretakers, and so on. Naturally, now that tho chief criminal lias been run to earth, the doctordetectives are busy looking for the accomplices. It may be that when those are found and understood the whole sad cancer problem will wear a now aspect. RESULT OF 'FOIL. Anyhow, we may well keep up our hearts, for the difficulties which have been overcome are as great as any of tho fresh difficulties which remain to bo attacked. Indeed, it can be said that what Dr Gvo and Mr Barnard _ have accomplished already is more like a miracle than sober fact. Their secret has been the most amazing hard work and courage and faith which it is possible to imagine. Dr Oyo, who is only about forty—that is to say, a more boy, as the ages of great discoverers go—has scarcely taken a bohd-iy for two years. While other men played he worked, toiling almost night and day at his tremendous task, finding the trail and losing it again, and again finding ft. His greatest difficulty was the size of the cancer germ, which is so small that not even the strongest microscope in the world could see it. Science has sharp eyes, hut her eyes wore as dull as lead when it came to looking Tor this atom of life, this living mote embedded among millions upon millions of other motes as small ami mysterious as itself. Yet oven that difficulty was conquered. And so grandly conquered, too, that the cancer germ has not only been seen: it has actually been photographed, so that all may sec it. How was this miracle accomplished? Tho answer is—?.lr Barnard. And that answer is a. whole romance in itself — one of the most amazing stories in all the long, long story of science. For Mr Barnard is not a doctor; lie is not a professor at a university. On tho contrary, he is a business man. a. London hatter, whose hobby it was and is to work with microscopes.

That hobby brought him to tho chairmanship of tho Microscopical Society, a great honor, and then won for him the bine riband of the British science—tile Fellowship of the Royal Society. Any man who can write the magic letters F.R.S. alter his name is a man who has made ids mark on tho world. And all this before tho groat cancer discovery which has written the name of this London hatter in letters of gold on the immortal .scroll of fame. MEDICAL C.I D.

Air Barnard, to put the fact plainly, invented a new eye for science—as I tried to explain a year or so ago while the wonder was new in tho columns of tho ‘ Sunday Chronicle.’ He discovered that, though the microscope could not “see” these tiny cancer germs when ordinary light was used, it could see them if X-rays or ultra-violet light was made use of.

I; nhappily—there is a fresh mystery -X-rays and ultra-violet Ight arc not light at all. I hey are darkness. The human eye is unable to see them. Not so, however, the “oyo of the'camera.” Though these rays reveal nothing at all to our senses, they reveal every thing to tho photographic plate, and also to what is called a “screen.” By using “screens” and photographs the cancer germ was brought at last to human knowledge. it lias been possible to look at it, to measure it, to draw pictures of it. Like a criminal who lias unco been convicted it has become a “ famifiar face’’ to tho medical (J.I.D. Everyone who knows (he story of tho war on disease knows that as soon as tho cause of the malady lias been found progress becomes rapid. 1 believe myself that wo shall see this truth illustrated once again in tho case of cancer.