CROWING TOLL OF CANCER.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XI, Issue 243, 18 October 1921, Page 3 (Supplement)

CROWING TOLL OF CANCER.

SPECIALIST WARNS THE NATION OF ITS DANGER. THE FIRST SIGNS. Two important statements stand out in a communication of cancer research made by Dr. Andrew Charles, F.R.C.S., of the Dublin Cancer Hospital; to the “Sunday Express.” ’These are: — 1. That cancer, in its early stages, can be prevented from taking a permanent grip on. tho body which it attacks, and can ho eliminated. 2. That tho world’s mortality record shows that cancer is accounting for more deaths than ever — the main statistics being that one person out of ten over forty years of ago dies of this disease. “No specific reason,” states Dr. Charles, “can bo assigned for tho increase in mortality. It may bo outsocial life or our diet, or some other cause connected with interaction and influence of mind and body. ”The disease is believed by experts to bo overtaking consumption in the number of its victims, tho reason being that a vast organisation has been formed to fight consumption, while cancer, more malignant and repulsive, is utterly neglected. G R EATER DEATH-RATE. “111 Ireland tho death-rate is greater from cancer than from any other disease. In 1918 41,227 persons in England and Wales succumbed Co its ravages.”

Dr. Charles advocates tho establishment of a great central instruction for research, and the provision of the best t reatment for those a’ready suffering from one or more of the twenty varieties which come under the generic head of sarcoma, or decaying and corrupting flesh. Here are a. few facts connected with the great red scourge of cancer which every man and woman should know:— 1. No one inherits cancer; it is not a constitutional or blood disease. 2. You cannot “catch” cancer from anyone who suffers from it. The growth is peculiar to the body which develops it. 3. Nature gives you a score of signals if cancer is trying to establish itself in your body—little lumps on the breast, hard, sometimes red, often a reddish white. These lumps are not necessarily cancerous, but if neglected may become malignant and cancerous. 4. A sore that refuses to heal, particularly about the mouth, lips, or tongue, is a danger signal. Birthmarks that irritate persistently should bo carefully watched and treated by medical advice. Irregularities in bleeding at the “change of life” have to be taken as cancer signals. 5. Chronic indigestion in middle life; internal pain, vomiting, or diarrhoea —these are sometimes signals for internal cancer. Radium is useful and promising as a means for curing certain kinds of cancer. It will not cure every form of the disease.