DEATHS FROM CANCER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19731, 2 September 1927, Page 12

DEATHS FROM CANCER.

| INCREASE IN N£V/ ZEALAND. j HIGHEST RATE VET RECORDED. I £ET TZXEC2Li2H. —££2CU£ ££PO&TE&j | WELLII»GT OS. Tfatrsda., I Last year nearly ose person to even* | tlwasaad living io X«r ZeaUsd died of {caacfcr. This fact is commented oo tn | the acsaal report of the Health Depart- | meat, tabled in the Basse. Death* from ! cancer totalled 13*1 in 1526, as increase ! of over 103 compared with 1925. f Commenting on iJse figures, Mr. J. W. I Bather, cfcrf compiler in the eeatu sta- \ tistkm office, aays:—"Paradoxical though

; it may seers to say so, evens this real in- | crease is is large part a reflection of the > progress that baa been made io the tc.er.ce iof medicine and sanitation. New Zealand I has teat noticeably socceaafal in redac- | ing ber rate of infantile mortality, and ? a certain measore of aoeceas has attended | the efforts made is recent years to cope f with, tafercifes. The jadiciotts baudj ling of jefeetioas and epidemic diseases, | and legislative safeguards against anneces- ? sary occspattfmal risks, have farther in?creas«d every person's ..prospect of reach- | ing middle tife, whereapon he finds the I selection of diseases in his older age conI fined mainly ot'ffeart disease, arterial deI generation, apoplexy, cancer and eld age j "Moreover, in New Zealand the average I death from cancer occurs after the age of i 60, so that if we could eliminate or rej duce cancer this wmtld bare little or no | effect aeon the death-rate. Tbe main | point of difference, hiwever, between I cancer and other principal casses of ) death in later life lies in the more pa?nfnl I nature and prolonged agony of the illness j preceding death. It {s ihi* that justifies j every haman effort to solve the cancer S problem." | The death-rate of 9.91 tier IQ.COQ is the | highest yet recorded, and is a matter of I ccncem.