FIGHT WITH CANCER

Taranaki Daily News, 6 September 1930, Page 7

FIGHT WITH CANCER

FINANCING RESEARCH WORK. APPEAL FOR ADEQUATE FUNDS. The urgency and necessity of combating cancer on properly organised lines in New Zealand was emphasised by Dr. J. S. Elliott, president of the New Zealand branch of the British Empire cancer campaign, when he appealed for adequate funds to finance research work at a largely attended gathering. It was the aim of the British Empire cancer campaign to promote research into the causes and cure of cancer, not only in the British Isles, but in the overseas Dominions, said Dr. Elliott. It was hoped to attack the enemy on a wide front. The problem was complex and there were many avenues to be explored, but there would be no overlapping as each centre would be co-ordinated and arranged under a central control. Already at the Otago University there was established a research centre under the control of Dr. A. M. Begg, a New Zealander who had been trained in the cancer research hospitals of London, and who had taken a proininent part in important and frutiful investigations. The society had also created cancer clinics in the four large cities and these were now in process of collecting and collating valuable statistical information, while they had also purchased radium in suitable form to be used in accordance with the methods recently shown to be most successful.

Many facts had already been added to the present knowledge of cancer, and if the necessary financial backing was forthcoming, it was hardly conceivable that the problem would evade solution much longer. Already cases that weie treated in the early stages showed a good proportion of recoveries. The future appeared bright with promise. The key to the cancer problem would probably be found by some independent worker untrammelled by routine, one who could bring more originality to bear upon the subject. The Government and the British Medical Association strongly supported the campaign and the society could have had a grant from the Government. That, however, was not the society’s policy, for it wanted to bring home the urgency of the. problem personally to each individual in the community. What was wanted was an endowment for research purposes and the appeal was made direct to the people. The sum of £50,000 was not too much. Already Otago and Canterbury had. raised £16,000 apiece for the maintaining of the central research institution and for local requirements. Wellington, he was sure, ■would not be behind. Professor E. F. Dath, of Otago University, said it was a fact that New Zealand had lagged behind other countries in the matter of cancer research. There were 1,250,000 people in Sydney, for instance, as many as in the whole of Now Zealand, and in six months a sum of £134,000 had been raised in that city, comprising over 100,000 separate donations.