THE CANCER PROBLEM.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 7 October 1924, Page 5

THE CANCER PROBLEM.

KOCH SECRET SERUM. BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT NEW YORK, Oct. 6. A resurgence of the cancer controversy seems inevitable as the result of an article by Dr. William F. Koch, of Detroit, in a magazine published by the American association for the study and cure of cancer. Dr. Koch expounds the germ theory of cancer, promising to divulge the secret of his serum treatment in next month’s issue. Dr. Koch invented a serum in 1920, but refusal to submit the formula to the local medical association resulted in his expulsion from membership. He nevertheless continued therapeutic and prophylactic treatments, until to-day partial recognition has been accorded, notably by Dr. C. Everett Field director of the Radium Institute of New York, who in the same issue characterised Dr. Koch’s researches as epoch-making and relates results .of the treatment bv the Koch method. Dr. Field declares that the Koch treatment dispels the expectation that radium .might be a specific, adding that after 11 years’ research with radium valued- at 180,000 dollars he had recently begun to minimise its use because it lacked true therapeutic powers. Additional testimony is adduced by Dr. L. Duncan Bulkley, senior physician in the skin and cancer hospital in New York, and president of the association for the studv and cure of cancer, who upholds the validity of Dr. Koch’s theory and Dr. Field’s practice adding that he {Dr. Bulkley) was particularly interested in two cases being treated by the Koch method with promising results. Dr. Field writes that he treated 78 advanced cases during the past year with the Koch formula. The chemical costs 50 dollars per dose, a patient receiving. three treatments six weeks apart. Dr. Field savs 12 of these show better prospects. Nineteen died, nut these all reuresented the limit of lost vitality, and eight of them had received previous radium treatments of such massage and dosage as to alter the metabolism and hasten toxemia. “All but three of our fatal cases showed, a period of betterment, with a reduction of masses, and no new growth appeared in anv cases,” he adds.