THE CANCER HORROR.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVI, Issue 196, 19 August 1912, Page 4

THE CANCER HORROR.

Discoveries of "cures" for cancer seem to be about as frequently made as are so-called "cures" for consumption. Unfortunately nothing ever seems to come of them, especially in the case of cancer. The open-air treatment has undoubtedly j proved ameliorative in a large number of cases of consumption, and better conditions of housing have contributed to a quite remarkable fall in the. number of deaths from that disease. But cancer still , continues to be a great mysterious horror, still defies tho best efforts of medical science, still remains a disease which # scourges humanity with annually increasing force. In 1860 the British death-rate' from cancer was 370 per million; in 1909 it was no less than 952. According to tho British Registrar-General's tables, out of every ten men and every seven women who reach the age of 45 one will ultimately die of cancer. No doubt there is much truth in the contention that the increase in the cancer death-rate is largely due not to an increased prevalence of the disease, but to more careful and accurate certification of the causes of death. Nevertheless, it is the opinion of many experts ■in cancer that this awful disease is actually" increasing at a rate which cannot be' explained away by this plea of more correct diagnosis. All that money and medical skill can do has, up to the present, failed to produce any real cure. Time afte,r time it has been announced that this, that, or the- other great bacteriologist has discovered the cancer microbe, and has been ■ able also to evolve some vaccine by which its ravages can be prevented or nullified. The latest such discovery has just been reported from Paris, where a certain Dr Gaston Odin claims to have ascertained tho cause of cancer, and to have discovered the means by which the cancer microbe can be successfully fought. If this report be true—if, at length, a reliable means has been found for the extirpation of this ghastly disease—then all the world will revere the name of Odin as it reveres to-day the name of the discoverer of chloroform (Sir James Simpson), or of that famous Frenchman, M. Pasteur. But so often has hope told too flattering and too fallacious a tale with regard to cancer "cures" that the news of Dr Odin's discovery must be received with the greatest caution and reserve. So far all. attempts to go outside "the knife" have been attended by failure, and yet more than once the most confident predictions have been made that cancer was at last conquered. Let us trust, and pray, that Dr Odin's discovery may be all that is claimed for. it. "' . • ■ ..• ■- ■'■■■■■■ ■■ ;: