CANCER AND ITS CURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19195, 8 December 1925, Page 11

CANCER AND ITS CURE.

TREATMENT WITH LEAD. ENGLISH SURGEON'S CLAIMS. MANY SUCCESSFUL TESTS. Revelations concerning the nature of! cancer and the apparent effectiveness of a new treatment employing lead, W£re made in an address before the Toronto Academy of Medicine on November 9 by Professor W. Blair Bell, a noted Liverpool surgeon and " university professor. An investigation begun by Professor Bell seventeen years ago, and during the last three years carried on under his direction by the Liverpool Cancer Research Committee with a staff of nearly thirty experts in jnany branches of science, is behind this report. In it striking evidence is produced that an explanation of cancer has been found and a method of treatment formulated that "places the solution of the cancer problem within grasp," according to Professor Bell, "if indeed it has not already been accomplished. " There probably is no specific cause of cancer, bui hundreds of causes," Dr. Bell declared. "It is the cancer itself that is a specific growth process." Professor Bell is one of tho leading surgeons of Great Britain. He is an authority on several branches of surgery. He has served as honorary director to the Liverpool Cancer Research Committee. Indications of the progress of the investigation have appeared from time to time since 1922, but Professor Bell's announcement is based on the practically com- : pleted report of the committee. Professor Bell asserted that his investigations had proved:—Firstly, that cancer is a definite condition of growth taking place in the cells affected; secondly, that this process is not unlike | certain normal processes of growth, but lacking the control that checks normal cell growth at the right point; thirdly, that in finding a substance to check this unrestrained growing of the cells a cure would be found for cancer; fourthly, that lead is such a substance. Lead therefore furnishes the basis of the treatment which Professor Bell and his collaborators have worked out. The fact that Professor Bell and his staff found early in their research that among chemists, plumbers and other workers with lead, cancer was a rare or unknown disease, is only one of the interesting considerations that led them to try it in the treatment of cancer, Professor Bell's address brought ont. "As at present administered, the lead, in a colloidal preparation—the metallic lead not in solution but in fine particles suspended in a liquid—is injected into the blood of tho patient." said Professor Bell. " It is attracted by the peculiar chemical content which is part of their nature, to the cells of the cancerous tissue on which it exerts a destructive force. Many cases treated have shown not only a complete check in the further development of the cancer, but even absorption of its mass." Gne Great Advantage. One great advantage claimed for this treatment lies iu tho fact that as it is injected into the blood it reaches all parts of the body and is therefore general in its effect, instead of having a merely local application, as in the case of radium and X-ray treatment. This general circulation is of immense importance in checking the development of similar growths in other parts of the body. In the five years since tho lead treatment of cancer began, the investigators have treated some 200 cases, with a considerable proportion of cures, according t-o Professor Bell. Interviewed on his return from America yesterday, Sir Donald McGavin, of Wellington, referred to the announcement by Dr. Blair Bell of his conclusions and remarked that it would appear to have not yet been subjected to a sufficiently dependable test to justify the claims made for it. Some time ago experiments had been made with copper in the same way with apparent success in a very few cases. A London cablegram published early in November stated that Professor Bell had supplied to the physicians of the Academy of Medicine information regarding the successful treatment of cancer by the lead process. The professor cited instances of remarkable success. He assured the members of the academy that 50 or so patients were now believed to be well out of 200 cases treated, most of which were believed to have been hopeless. A later cablegram stated that Dr. J. G. Adami, Vico-Chan-cellor of the University of Liverpool, states that there had been astounding successes in inoperable cases by means of Professor Bell's treatment. Only hopeless cases were attempted because of the dangerous nature of the treatment. In some cases, said Dr. Adami, there had been a recrudescence of the malady owing to the smallness of the doses administered.