CANCER PROBLEM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22903, 10 June 1936, Page 5

CANCER PROBLEM

A MORE HOPEFUL OUTLOOK IMPROVED METHODS OF STUDY (Per United Press Association) WELLINGTON, June 9. The feeling among recently qualified medical graduates that there was an improved and more hopeful outlook on the cancer problem was mentioned by the president of the New Zealand Branch of the British Empire Cancer Campaign Society, Dr J. S. Elliott, at the annual meeting of the branch to-day. Dr Elliott described the treatment facilities and developments in radium and X-rays and the developments in the physical and pathological services, adding that the necessity for better instruction in cancer had been realised by the medical school authorities. At the main hospitals, he said, final year, medical students attended in rotation meetings of the Cancer Committees and were brought into contact with large groups of cases of the disease in a way which had never been possible in ordinary h >spital practice. The Minister of. Health (Mr P. Fraser) spoke of the widespread influence of the society in the study and control of cancer. He said that cancer, still stood second only to heart disease as a cause of death, and as in .the case of the latter the .crude death rate was increasing. The Government was fully alive to the very great importance of the work of the society and would render whatever support and assistance were possible from time to time in the important humanitarian work it was undertaking.