FIGHTING CANCER.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10780, 31 May 1911, Page 4

FIGHTING CANCER.

(Per Piti'iss Association.) Auckland, May 30. The discovery of a. cure for the dread and malignant cancer is probably the most desired result of all scientific investigations.. Recently it was cabled from Sydney that three case;-, had been recorded in which permanent cures had been effected by the agency of radium. Th<sre is reason for congratulation in this, but even more satisfactory is the knowledge that here in Auckland quite a number of perui:iuenl cures have been established in the case of cancer of the skin, commonly known as rodent ulcer. In the past it has been customary to hove recourse to excision for all cases of the kind. Invariably and inevitably, however, the cancerous growth has extended and become more malignant-, extending over the whole side of the face and ultimately causing the death of the sufferer. Occasionally caustics were tried; but the result- was always the same. Then last year one of the best known and respected medical men in the city tried' a new form of treatment, in which the X-ra-ys were brought into operation in conjunction with the use of metal. Other leading surgeons were impressed with the possibility' of the new treatment, and sent their patients to the brother practitioner who inaugurated the use of X-rays on' metal, with the result that quite a number of cures have been recorded to the satisfaction of members of the profession. The first patient so treated was a man suffering from cancer of the skiu in the

region of the eye. He had it removed three tinies, and there was the usual operation scar characteristic of the rodent ulcer. After the X-ray and metal treatment .there were speedy signs of improvement, and by July, four mouths later, there were no signs of the growth left. The man submitted himself lor observation three weeks since, and there was nothing beyond a smooth scar to show that cancer had ever existed. The second case so treated was that of a rodent ulcer which had eaten so deeply into the side of the nose that the whole nasal cavity was exposed. This'man' submitted himself for treatment in August, and by the end of October the treatment had been effective. On February 6 the patient presented himself for the last time. 'He was then quite recovered. The wound was perfectly 'healed. The third' case, although a speedy cure was not established, was exceedingly satisfactory. It was a case of cancer or sarcoma of the tonsil. Silver wires were placed l in the throat and' the X-rays employed. The whole of the sarcoma came away, the tonsils being sloughed out. The enlarged glands in the neck went- down, and had the patient (a. woman) not been so very weak when brought for treatment a more speedy recovery would no doubt have taken place. The X-ray and metal treatment lias also' been tried with remarkable success by the Auckland doctor in question in eases of lupus or tubercle of the skin. The first of these was the case of a boy who came under" observation last winter. By September there was a distinct improvement, and by October the growth on the cheek, ~ which had been the size of a 5s piece, was "barely visible. There has since been no recurrence.. • ■ Two other cases of lupus were treated with equal success. In .using silver foil and the X-rays the effect secured is much the same as that obtained by the use of radium. The rays reflected from the metal seem to produce similar effects to the. emanations from radium. Professor Thomas, in his experiments before the last British Medical Society Conference in- London, showed the secondary radiations set up by the impact of the X-rays on different metals. In. the case of deeprooted internal cancer a shrinkage in size only has been achieved, but there has been no diminution of malignancy. When it is remembered that last year 721 people in New Zealand died of cancer, —*123 more than from of the lungs—it will be realised how much this advancement of science in' the successful treatment of cancer of the skin is to be appreciated,'and how this success maybe gauged as a hopeful: augury for the ultimate cure of eventhe most virufent and deep-rooted cases,