THE CANCER GERM

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 August 1920, Page 7

THE CANCER GERM

V. , '■C,||^V|V v ~ ||* HAS IT BEEN FOUND? | SCIENTISTS’. LATEST DISCOVERIES. | | Cancer, one of tho most deadly scourges of man and a most- baffling di-ease as well, may soon be conquered by medical science (says the “San Francisco Chronicle, ). At least tins is the conclusion that can be drawn from the result,?'of the most recent | researches to solve the mystery of this dire malady. At last scientists have captured the ch-.dvc germ of cancer, which, they say, i • nist a spore, too small to be outlined by ivHi a high powered miscorscope., bur vhich germinates speedily info fearful dmensions once it gets a good start. In its inception it might well be cio'cd a disease of water plants, known as Mean, ■dive it is fn-ui such ph.nts that tho suostance, vegetable in its nature, is given off ;,; 0 - the feed of an organism so minute that it hikes tho most modern high-powered micro-.vp a +,o tec it. Fish take in swarms of the.,? ivganisms in fficir gill work-of imbibing 'Dir. little worm-

r./Vgen throngi water, me mu? worn.■■i'.ijjccl organisms speedily deposit gf'nia in the .‘ish and go ale ut their wav FISH AND CANCER « result, millions of fish m Aimv’ti and Europe are said to he more or less infected with cancer. w The organism itself being just visible under the high powered microscope, the cancer germ within could not be seen, cjaept in the form of a faint shadow. As a result of this-discovery, those investigators emphasise the warning that the public should sit up and pay some attention to the first rule placarded by every hoard of health in the world, “Boil your

drinking water.” The American Society for the Control of Cancer has recently concluded - an intensive campaign against this disease. J.he purpose of this campaign was to increase public understanding of this disease which in the United States causes one death in every ten among persons over forty years of age. While the medical profession has not determined the cause of cancer, and a “cure” for the disease irr its advanced stages has yet to be found, physicians declare that cancer can be stopped, or at Wet arrested, if people can be taught to

jeosu ancotuu, it v—recognise its first stages and seek medical attention before it is too late. POINTS OF THE CAMPAIGN. The following were the cardinal points of 'the campaign, according to F • JOsborne, secretary of the society 1. Cancer is not a “blood” disease but always starts as a local affair. Hence cancer can be cured by removal if discovered and treated early enough. 2. Cancer in the beginning may cause no pain, or other symptoms of ill-health. 3. Cancer is probably not hereditary. A n* mnfoninn<3

4. Cancer is not contagions. 5. No up-to-date doctor will treat a con dition that might mean cancer without thorough examination. 6 The cancer patient must learn to seek treatment as promptly as a patient with appendicitis. , CANCER IN ANIMALS. Dr Raymond L. Ditmars, of the New 1 York Zoological Park, has also.discovered that ticks arc also the cancers of the cancer germ, by which the collections have lost hundreds of valuable snakes and other reptiles. In reptiles the germ generates first on the floor of the month ; in fishes, in the gill section. Dr Harvey R. Gaylord, hea l of the American Cancer Commission, says . “Wc believe thyroid tumour occurs almost universally where trout are made the subject of artificial propagation and rearing under ordinary conditions of fish culture in the United States.” The American Cancer Commission, which was appointed by Colonel Roosevelt, 0- during his last term as President, has accumulated an enormous amount of data and arrived at important conclusions regarding cancer. This commission, headed jjy Dr Harvey R. Gaylord, of the Buffalo « -t r 1 • L TlirtAnpoa WJIC!

nstitut-on ior iu.uiijiu.ii*omposed of experts in their respective -ranches of science. Knowing that certain fish were subject ,o the disease, they investigated all the witcheries in America, and from the lateheries took up the water supplies that :ed them. They found a cancer graft [rom one trout could hot be made to Terminate in another trout, nor in a mammal nor in man. THE GERM IN WATER. Also they demonstrated that if you eat a cooked fish liaving cancer you don’t get the disease in that way. If, however, you drink the water from which the infection came, without boiling it, you may acquire the disease the same way that the trout got it. Each fish,

each mammal, each man gets the germ from infected drinking water. ■ Examination .showed the commission that the carrier of the cancer germ is a minute worm which breeds on algae, a plant which lives in watQr. It was defined by Dr B H. Ransom, of the United States Bureau of Public Health, to be a new species. He has given it the lengthy name of Agamonematodum. Dr Ransom finds that the head apparently has three lips, the mouth without throat located at the end of the canal, and the front end of the body supplied with narrow lateral cuticular w-ngs. This ‘organism, inconceivably small to the human mind, then, is the carrier of cancer, and within its body the virus of cancer.