CAUSE OF CANCER

Southland Times, Issue 20014, 30 October 1926, Page 7

CAUSE OF CANCER

HIGH LIVING BLAMED. AMERICAN DOCTOR’S OPINION. New York, October 28. Dr. William Chapman, the new President of the American College of Surgeons, told a convention of the most eminent surgeons in the world that there is a connection between modern high living and cancer. He said over-eating, over-drinking and overloaded nutrition inevitably brings on old age, disturbing the balance between the tissues. This bodily degeneration will induce a pre-cancerous state. Then some local irritation sets the whole process alight. American statistics show that, beyond the age of forty, one male in every twelve and one female in every eight manifests the disease and the increase was at the rate of 2i per cent, per annum. No tissue or cell in the human body is ever at rest and with the onset of senescence the demand for cell production decreased. If by chance cell production outlasts all demand there was a loss of tissue. The balance of these excess cells found no work to do and, becoming a lawless rabble with the tissue, they only require some local invitation to start cancerous growth. Diet was a factor both in respect of. quantity and equality and the vegetarian did not escape. The rule for cancer prevention was the simple life, maintaining a sound mind in a diligent useful body.— A. and N.Z. 1