WAR AGAINST CANCER.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 7 August 1928, Page 7

WAR AGAINST CANCER.

EI’EORT.S IN ALSTK ALIA. ~G i! A\' iTY A) V TIL E POSITION. If there were an average ol' .six tleai.is a day m Sydney item, say, t,vjU.jki fe.er. the ceinmuuity would ue m sjmetlimg o. a state ol panic. 'Unit is the tragic toil whicn dread <ancer is t.iKing m New vvoutli u ales, yet tlie .aiii.de ui tne people toward -the s eiirgc lias been somewhat fatalistic, antes, the gydney coiuespondcnt o. the A c..land Herald. e l. was only IS months ago, when a rousing appeal was made for funds to n .hts -the pestilence, that the public « as awakened to a. consciousness of tlie gra>it-y o< the position. it then reiap.se cl into a state of indifference, but ..ydney University, into whose lap/dts generous were poured, got immediately to work. 'to-day the first am its of. that fund twe witnessed in ihe war which been declared' upon cancer by Sydney -University, in co-operation with the JAideral Government and the Royal Prince Alu-ed'Hos-pital. The first shot has been fired. It is not suggested that the" new scheme, of attack, with the aid of the federal Government’s imported radium— almighty atom weighing less than a third o. an ounce, but worth £i.v0,0.50 —is going to work miracles, Imt it is confidently believed it will | lessen the shocking death rate and bring hope to many to-day who are weighed down with poignant hopelessness. Patients of the poorer class, lor whom the radium was primarily intended. are now being treated at the Koval Prince Alfred Hospital. The university hopes in. a few months to be able to prepare the' radium at its disposal in a. safe form for distribution among other approved hospitals and practitioners. 11 is stated by those wlioi ought to know that one could put into a spoon the whole of the pure imported radium in Australia to-day. The Royal Prime \llrcd Hospital has had apportioned to it out of the Federal Government’s co.stlv mite —worth £256,000 just after the war—about one-twenty-seventli of an ounce, split into about 280 separate [lie es. Small as it is, it is capable ox much good, especially for certain types of s.vin and tongue cancer and for eanc.r o. certain organs, especially in advaiued cases which do not lend them--(d es to surgery. New South Wales and Queensland are to-day putting up |, -haps the biggest light of all the States against the scourge.