UP-TO-DATE SCIENCE

New Zealand Mail, 22 January 1902, Page 29

UP-TO-DATE SCIENCE

(By Dr. Andrew Wilson)

CANCER CURES. j Tho subject of cancer has been revived within the last few days through the publication of an alleged cure for the disease which is said to have proved successful in the case of “Lady Margaret Marsham, sister of the Earl of Romney.” The cure is described as consisting of an infusion of violet leaves, which is applied to the cancerous growth. One gets tired and wearied of such reports, ! because they repeat themselves in the j matter of their non-successes. What 1 is wanted first cf all to establish the i reality of any cancer “cure” is evidence of the existence of the dreaded disease —■evidence of a nature wine:; admits of no dispute. In the next instance, one should demand proof of the application of the remedy, and of the effects produced thereby. In the third instance, we require proof of cure. It is not sufficient that there should be improvement merely. Cases of cancer will sometimes exhibit marvellous progress towards an apparent cure without the aid of any application whatever. As often as not tho improvement is only of temporary nature, and the case ends fatally. Therefore, let us be wary of accepting all statements concerning cancer “cures.” I say this much in the interests of suffering men and women. Unless evidence is forthcoming from a reliable source that the disease said .to have been cured was really cancer, and that it was arrested, any report of the kind alluded to had better be severely discredited.

QUACK REMEDIES. Cancer has always been the happy hunting ground cf the quack fraternity. I remember well, years ago, investigating the practice of a quack in the North, who had obtained a reputation, entirely fictitious, for tho cure of cancer. Cases, which, according to popular report had resisted all the skill aud science of the medical profession' wero alleged to he cured by the quack’s treatment. lie applied a paste to the cancerous growths. The paste was composed largely of arsenic, and the result of its application was, to use a mild term, disastrous. One case alleged to have been cured, was found to he dying in a terrible condition, her state having been much worse by the application of the paste. Nobody was able to afford any evidence that a single case had benefited from the treatment, not to speak of cure. I confess to being a free lance in ail such matters. I would welcome a cure for cancer, from whatever source it originated, but if my experience of life is worth anything at all, it has taught me that cures for grave disorders are not discovered in haphazard fashion. On the contrary, they are the result of long, careful, scientific study of the causes of ailments, and of the conditions under which they originate. I do not sneer at the violet-leaf cure of cancer, but I do say that it is highly improbable that any such infusion as that described should affect the progress of a grave disorder. When I read that somebody has been “cured” of consumption by swallowing so many bottles of So-and-So’s mixture, my first query is, “Who certified the case to he one of consumption?” assuming there has been a cure at all to record.

THE NERVOUSNESS OF PLANTS. Mr Francis Darwin has published tho lecture on plant movements which he delivered to tho members of the British Association at Glasgow. Leaving out of count the movements of tho leaves and leaf tentacles of such species as tho sensitive plants, the Venus Flytraps and tho Sundews, we find in the vegetable kingdom a wide selection of phenomena that suggests forcibly to ilie mind of tho biologist that plant sensitiveness may ho more nearly akin to tho animal’s nervous irritability than we are given to believe. It is not enough for us to say that certain flower stalks are “guided by gravitation” in their movements, for gravitation will only act upon what it finds in tho living plant. In tho case of the Sundews and Venus Flytraps, which capture insects for food as deftly as do tho spiders, wo come upon sensitiveness with a purpose, and that

purpose and end the same which meets our view in the animal world. We can trace back the origin of the. sensitiveness to the living matter of the plant cell, just as in the animal we refer its nervous qualities to the living material of the nerve oell and the nerve fibre. In the animal the sensitiveness is only more apparent than in the plant. That a common basis exists for both forms of nervous relations is a fair inference from the facts.

PLANT MIND. Wo may find a still more curious fact, showing the possible identity' of all forms of nervousness in life at largo, j in the ease of the sensitive plants. These I can bo rendered unconscious by being S made to breathe in the vapour of ether. ! They become practically as unconscious | as does the hospital patient who lias j been etherised prior to undergoing an | operation. That which destroys tho j sensitiveness of the animal nerve cell : also abolishes the irritability of the j plant-cell. Analogy, it is true, may he [ a deceitful guide, as Darwin says, hut I liei’e the inference that both kinds of ! living matter are similar in respect of j their nervous functions would appear ! justifiable. We are therefore forced to j the conclusion that wherever we have ! life we find sensitiveness. In other i words, the nervous faculty is an invari- I able concomitant of life everywhere. Air : Francis Darwin, in liis lecture, argues for the recognition of a common territory wherein the animal and the plant I meet in respect of their nervous rela- . tions. If wo admit that we find in the ; plant instincts, mostly preservative in i their nature, without the concomitant i consciousness that marks the higher regions of the animal territory, we will probably arrive ata first view of a difficult situation. There may be no need ! to argue for the piiychic (or mind) o’e- ! ment in plants, tl is sufficient that they i act and react on their surroundings. ! The greater glory of the animal is that j it is more conscious of its relations in | the world than is the plant. Here, howi ever, we are talking of the higher animal. Wordsworth may, after all, have been nearer the truth than even poetic fancy dreamt of when he declared that j ’Tis my faith that every flower | Enjoys the air it breathes.

ROPE RAILWAYS. Standing in the Victoria Station, Manchester, I was again interested in noticing the system of what I suppose is to be termed “telpherage” in the conveyance of parcels from one part of ti e huge building to another. Away over head in the roof, you see a kind of casket suspended ou wires or ropes in which is seated a lad. The basket is laden with parcels, and provided, as far as I could notice, with an electric motor. All day long this basket is travelling to and from tlie various parcel offices of the station, transmitting quickly light goods throughout the edifice. One’s mind unconsciously passed to a comparison of this electric light railway with the ingenious arrangement seen in many drapers’ shops, where money is conveyed rapidly along a miniature railway to and from tho cashier’s desk. “Telpherage” I have also noticed in use somewhere or other on the line between London and Brighton, and I notice that a rope railway is in operation for conveying bricks between the Cork Brick Company’s works and the nearest station. The length of the line is four miles. It can transport twelve tons of material per hour. The buckets hold 3.jcwt. each, and travel at the rate of four miles per hour. The cheapness of this mode of transportation is evident when wo are told that the cost of sending bricks to Cork has been reduced from 18s per 1,000 to Gs.

RUMINATION IN MAN. The faculty of returning the food to the mouth for the purpose of rernasticating it is, of course, familiar to everybody as a feature of the life of such animals as tho sheep, oxen, camels, and other creatures, named accordingly “ruminants,” or “cud-chewing.” It may bo nows to some readers that this habit is occasionally represented in man. In a recent Italian dissertation on the subject, four members of a family were found to possess this faculty. It is not suggested that tho compound stomach of the ruminant animals was represented in these cases. The action rather deponds upon some abnormal command over the muscles of the stomach and gullet, whereby tho food can be returned to the mouth at will.