CANCER RESEARCH.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXV, Issue 158, 20 June 1935, Page 6

CANCER RESEARCH.

There are before the public just now so many appeals in humanitarian causes that even the sympathetic well-to-do find difficulty in responding to them all in the way they would wish. There turn, however, be no doubt as to the promotion of pians for assisting research into the causes of and remedies for cancer being one that merits the. special attention of all those who can afford much or little in the way of financial contribution to the funds that are essential to their prosecution. From all sides we hear how the incidence of this dread malady is spreading among civilised communities, while ih our own little country its place in mortality returns is ever mounting higher and the pathetic record of human suffering grows yearly in volume altogether out of proportion to the increase in population. It is under conditions such as these that many among the very best brains of the medical profession, laying aside all thought, of personal advancement, are devottnS themselves exclusively to the task of ascertaining its causes and seeking means for its cure or its prevention. Indeed, it may be said that? the medical profession as a whole is engaged in a cooperative crusade against the fell malady, and one in which the ordinary practitioner, as an observer and provider of data, plays no unimportant part. But all these individual efforts can be of little avail, or at best must be greatly deterred in their results, unless the funds necessary for providing the material means .of intensive scientific research are forthcoming. Even placing the motives for extending financial support on their lowest level ,eaeh one of us is personally concerned for the success of the so earnest endeavours that are being thus put forth, for cancer is a disease that is no respecter of persons or of social classes. No one of us is justified in hoping that he or she is more likely than the rest to escape its clutch. There should, however, be no need to emphasise this aspect of the appeal that is made on behalf of suffering humanity in the mass. This year of the King’s Jubilee is, appropriately enough, marked by a special effort to secure the requisite funds, and it is to be hoped that all who possibly can will spare something, however little, towards augmenting them.