CURE WILL BE FOUND

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16703, 21 July 1928, Page 5

CURE WILL BE FOUND

THE CANCER SCOURGE DOCTOE'S -OPTIMISM (Special w> the Herald.) CITRISTCHURCH, this day. " I am quite convinced that laboratory research will ultimately give us the cure for cancer," said Dr. P. C. Fenwick, head of the deep therapy department oi the Christchurch Public Hospital, speaking to a representative to-day of tiie Empire Cancer Conference at present being held in London. "It cannot be said that smoking is the cause of cancer," he said, reletting to the suggestion made at tho conference. There is nothing to prove it, although in some circumstances, if a man smoked a lot of cigarettes While he had a sore lip, lor instance, it might possibly do so.

" Coai tar products we know have caused malignant growths, a sort of artificial cancer on rats, but, again there is nothing to show that workers m tar are more subject to cancer than other people. It is impossible to state that anything can be scientifically accepted as the cause of cancer, but. we know that chronic irritation of any part of the body is very frequently the first step to an invasion of the tissues by cancer.

" It will, be a big step towards cure of cancer when we find the cause, and I am sure that cure will come from the laboratory." VALUE OF RADIUM. Dr. Fenwick told enthusiastically of the various campaigns against this deadly disease which were going on in various parts of the world, and of the results which various workers had secured. Radium, he said, had been proved to cure, at least apparently, surface cancer. Though internal cancer was still the most difficult disease in the world to cure, radium had been proved to give definite, results in Paris, Stockholm, and London. Professor Regaud, in Paris, had experimented with radium, and following his methods the Westminster Hospital in Louden had exhibited 30 cures of cancer of the tongue. The leading institution in England engaged in work on cancer is tho Cancer Research Laboratory of the Middlesex Hospital, London, which, according to Dr. Fenwick, is doing wonderful work. All over the world patient workers are doing their best to discover the cause of this disease. They are paid poorly, and there is little acknowledgment of their work, but helped by com muni cations from each other, telling of the work that others are doing, they go on. Surely these thousands ol unselfish research workers must soon get to the root of the cancer trouble.