CANCER SCOURGE

Evening Star, Issue 20314, 24 October 1929, Page 9

CANCER SCOURGE

REPORTED CURE FROM AUCKLAND DOCTOR’S SCEPTICAL ABOUT EFFICACY OF KEROSENE [Pss United Pbess Association.] HAMILTON, October 23. Since the publication of the claim by L. N. White, of 64 Bandon street, Frankton, that he cured himself of virulent cancer by the use of kerosene, he has been inundated with letters and telegrams from all parts of the dominion asking for further details, and the method of treatment. Mr White, who is a labouring man, says that be will be unable to answer them all. Lo a reporter be stated that when he first entered Auckland Hospital three years ago, he was told he had cancer, and he was operated upom when the growth was removed Light montns later it was back, and he suffered its pains for several months before he again was forced to go to hospital. He was then told that it was incurable, and that he had a month to live. A certificate that he was suffering from an incurable growth was forwarded by the doctors who examined him to the Railway Department, where he was then employed. Since his cure he had been employed on many contracts requiring great physical endurance. He had had no return of the old trouble since a month or so after he commenced the treatment, and the fact that he is feeling quite well is to aim sufficient proof of cure. He still has to take care of himself, and occasionally resorts to the treatment as a precaution against a recurrence, although he feels in himself that he will not bo subjected to it again Asked if he would be prepared t to submit to examination by a medical man skilled in knowledge of cancer. Mr White said he would be only too pleased, but the evidence of the two doctors who pronounced him incurable, and of the medical officer who examined him under instructions from the Health Department, and pronounced him cured, should, ho thought, be sufficient proof. OUHEDIN OPINIONS “ MIGHT HOT BE CANCER,’ * SAYS LEADING SURGEON A prominent Dunedin surgeon said he had read of the case and had been interested. As he had seen no definite statement by the medical men who had attended the patient, however, he did not care to express any opinion on t;; case. He did not know, for instance, that this case had been proved microscopically to be cancer at all. It might have been cancer; it might not have been cancer. Every now and again medical men claimed to have cured a case which had been reported as cancer, but there was always the possi bility that it was not really cancer. That the present case was genuine cancer would need to be proved microscopically before anything definite could be claimed. It was highly probable that in the Auckland case -nib" had been applied, and it might be that credit was being given to the wrong thing for the cure. It was only now and again that an advanced case of cancer was cured, and for no apparent reason. There were too many loopholes in the circumstances for anything definite to be claimed. “ All nonsense,” was the laconic reply of a well-known and experienced Dunedin physician whem approached for his opinion on the question. He did not volunteer to say any more except that this case might be on a par with another ridiculous cure of a disease that had been reported from Auckland some time ago. SCEPTICAL IN CHRISTCHURCH OPINIONS OF MEDICAL MEN “ If you want to see a doctor smile ask him what he thinks of the news telegraphed form Auckland that kero sene, heated to a high temperature, allowed to cool to blood heat, and theai injected, is a cure for cancer.” This was how an investigator in Christchurch described the result of his inquiries. “ We’li take that with a grain ot salt,” said one Christchurch doctor when the news was refei'red to him. “ I don’t think there’s very much in it.” “ If there was a growth it wasn’t a cancer, or else kerosene didn’t cure it,” said another Christchurch doctor. “He was not the first man to try that.” “ We earnestly hope that the Health Department, now it has investigated the case, will tell us all about it,” said Dr P. C. Fenwick, head of the radium department at the Christchurch Hospital. “It is very interesting.”