SPREAD OF CANCER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18333, 24 February 1923, Page 9

SPREAD OF CANCER.

MORTALITY IN KENT.

DEATH-RATE INCREASES.

■One person in every 780 in Kent died from cancer in 1921. The death-rate from this disease was 50 per cent, higher than in 1908.

These alarming facts, contained in the report issued by Dr. Greenwood, the medical officer .of health for Kent, should help to. awaken the public to the' terrible danger of the mystery scourge of modern life, says a London paper. . The increase is not confined to Kent. Cancer is spreading all over the country. . Deaths have more than doubled within the. past 40 years. "One woman in every six, and one man in every nine, who die after reaching the age of 35, die from cancer," said an official of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. "It is very difficult to arrive at a just conclusion on the Kent report without fuller details. Kent is a residential county with a large percentage of elderly residents. Cancer is a disease of middle age. Modern diagnosis is much more exact than it used to be. Fewer, cases i are missed, and consequently the mortality returns look greater." Authorities confess themselves unable to explain the spread of cancer. It remains one of the greatest mysteries of the age. -Its cause is unknown. It has been attributed to: Mental worry, severe body blows, excessive smoking, excessive drinking, heredity, diet, and infection. Expert opinion is divided on all such theories. "Cancer houses" are. houses with worm-eaten timbers. In one such house eight clergymen contracted cancer within 40 years. Yet medical authorities state that no definite proof that cancer can be "caught" is available, and that it is merely a coincidence when < people contract disease in "cancer houses."

Laboratories exist in, London at the Cancer Hospital and at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in Bloomsbury where men search for the cancer cure. Experiments are being made every day. "Few members , of the general public are aware of the splendid research work now in progress," said a distinguished doctor. "It is work undertaken in the hope that some day we may be able to say definitely how and why cancerous growths appear. Till we know that we cannot, find the cure. Radium treatment has been found valuable in cases of incipient cancer, but the increased deaths from cancer all over the country prove how much wo have to learn about this terrible disease." A strange fact about cancer, revealed by modern statistics is that the disease is more prevalent among the shepherds in Wales than among the industrial coalmining communities.