MALARIA AS A CANCER CURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11986, 7 June 1902, Page 5 (Supplement)

MALARIA AS A CANCER CURE .

Alleged cures for diseases --generally re* ■'•■ puted incurable are offered daily. Recently: -i cancer has been credited with an unusual j "\ , number. The latest is a German discovery, . reported in. the daily press, that malaria and' . : " cancer cannot exist together,' and that. one disease may therefore, act. &* an antidote • to the other. , Says the Times (New York, April 7), in. an editorial on. this 'reported discovery':: ' ,'"*' . '-''■"' " •' V : .'-■■;- "A gleam of hope for cancerous patients has been lately cast by the experiments of ''". Dr. Loeffler and the corroborative statetalents of Dr. von Leyden, of Berlin, who . ,:/ occupies a very high position in, his profess-! sion. .-, .-■ : ■ ;'''•■ '-■■'; : •'..;,-< •. ■■■'.'/; "With regard to cancer, modern observers have noticed that it'does not attack people who "live in malarious regions, It is said to be almost unknown in China. Putting this fact together with the observations of the old Greek physicians and those of observers ' in the later Middle Ages Dr. Loeffler asked the question whether the malarious germ would not conquer the germ ( of cancer. The reasoning seems all the more plausible because the dwindling of malarious cases seems to be proceeding hand-in-hand with the increase of cancer. If the reasoning is correct cancer ought to be cured by malaria in one way or another, for instance, by injecting the blood of a person;suffering from malaria into the veins of a cancerous patient. Here the recent study of the propagation of '- malaria by the sting of mosquitoes which have been sucking the blood of malarious : ,', : f persons came opportunely to hand., '- \ "According to Dr. von Leyden's; statements in the German papers the : experiments in this direction promise good results. He thinks that we have in the malarial ;': germ means to counteract that of cancer* while Dr. Koch's experiments have shown- . '■■ that by examining the blood of a patient in whom malaria has been developed we can tell when to cure the malaria by the judicious use of quinine. We are there- ■ fore no longer in the position of trying to cure one disease by inoculating the sufferer with another, aver which :we / have 'no control." ...... Commenting on the same despatches the Providence Journal (April 8) says;—- '~.'*' . "We inoculate people with cowpox to free them from the danger of smallpox; it is perhaps no more incredible that we ' shall some day give a victim of cancer the germ of malaria, and when the milder dis- •" , ease is his only cause of suffering proceed'to tight the malaria with quinine, .iconite, op • whatever drug fits the case. That malaria ".' is a. cure for cancer may prove no more V, the fact after trial than the report was true that the Jlontgen ray could cure cancer, a - theory that has not stood the test of appli- i cation. It is of curious interest to note, . ';? whatever the result, of patient observation may reveal, that while most of us are just :;■ awakening to the notion that we ought t<j kill the mosquito to rid the world of malaria, some of the .ablest scientists in Europe believe that they are to find in malaria one of the great blessings of humanity. If they are right, putting their theory terse!v, ,wa may yet propagate mosquitoes to propagate malaria to cure cancer."