CAUSE OF CANCER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 147687, 5 September 1911, Page 7

CAUSE OF CANCER.

By Telegraph.—Pre«« Arsociation.— * London, September 3. A piscussioN is proceeding at the meeting of the British Association as to whether Mr. E. Smith's* remxrkable discoveries of : tumorous growths in plants will possibly lead to a discovery of the- origin of cancer. / "NOT CATCHING." Sir William Church ' announced at the annual meeting of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund that " the relationship that cancer bears to the animal -in -which it occurs is an individual one.". In plain •words that cancer is " not catching" and "cancer houses" cannot exist. The report of Dr. Bashford, the general superintendent of the fund, for the first time fully demonstrates that it is wrong to make statements of a disquieting nature about the increase of cancer, in general. The theory at present is that cancer is caused by chronic irritation of any particular part of the body. Thus in Tibet malignant growths of the abdominal wall are caused by the continual wearing of vessels containing hot charcoal, and in the East the chewing of betel nut occasions cancer. In China the men are very liable to cancer of the gullet, but in women the disease is unknown, the reason being ( that the men bolt their rice when it * is very hot, being served! first, while the women have to wait, and then the rice is cool and non-irritating. As regards heredity, Dr. Bashford shows that it plays a part in the development of cancer of the breast in mice, but is careful to say: "Without wishing to minimise unduly the important influence which is thus demonstrated, it is necessary to warn against needless alarm or the awakening of pessimistic anticipations of the outlook on future efforts to cope with cancer."