GANGER RESEARCH.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12499, 27 March 1909, Page 4

GANGER RESEARCH.

■ In the laboratories of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, at the foot of davoy Hill, the observation of cancer cases, at all stages and -varieties of the disease, is. constantly proceeding. For this purpose 10,000 mice are used. They have all- been inoculated with cancer. The normal life of the mouse, is about eighteen months or less — roughly, about a fiftieth part of that of a normal, healthy man. A week of cancer in a mouse is, therefore, equal to a year of cancer in a man — a fact that facilitates observation. The mice are specially bred for the purpose, and cost about 3s a dozen. A mouse lives for two or three months after being infected with cancer. It has been definitely proved in the kboratories that cancer is not infectious. ■ For inoculation purposes the affected' tissue must bo actually trans-: f erred to an animal of a different specie. ; \ Dr E. E. Bashford, the . general superintendent of the research fund, "stated : — ' 'It is necessary to repeat Sir Frederick Treves' warning, not to expect too much from the new radium investigation. A tumour is merely ordinary- flesh gone wrong. ; Can something be discovered which will have a selective action. on capoei:cells; and drive out the disease without injuring other parts of the body? Five years ago Sir William Ramsay generously supplied us with solutions of radium emanations, and tinder their influence tumours in mice, certainly did disappear. But that disappearance followed exactly the same course as spontaneous healing, and- it was impossible to say whether the radium had accelerated a natural piocess or not. -■"It is evident that the Radium Institute will attempt to go straight at •th-3 :goal of .finding some curative or remedial measure for cancer,; as a "Jf.x-.bstitute for, or an auxiliary to, the surgeon's knife. .■;. Our own business is 'trt-f.fod'v the .natural- history of the disoifre." — "Hawke's Bay Herald.".