FIGHT AGAINST CANCER

Taranaki Daily News, 10 March 1932, Page 9

FIGHT AGAINST CANCER

DISEASE NOT HEREDITARY DEFINITE CURE NOT YET KNOWN. PUBLIC COULD AID CAMPAIGN. BRITISH'SURGEON’S OPINIONS, By Telegraph.—Press Association. Auckland, March 9. Comments on the attitude of the public to cancer and how people could help in research were made at a public meeting by Mr. C. H. Fagge, vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons. ■ “It appears to me,” said Mr. Fagge, that there has always been a curious sense of modesty in the public mind in relation to cancer. So many people attempt to conceal the idea that their relatives suffered or died from cancer. There is nothing disgraceful about it, so why conceal it? One of the difficulties we have is to dispel the idea so widely held by lay people that any disease which is not painful cannot be can cer. One cannot too often insist that in its early stages cancer is painless.” Many people thought that cancer was associated only with advancing age, but, although more often associated with age, it did affect, and in. its malignant forms, the young. There was not the slightest evidence that cancer was in any sense hereditary. Every medical practitioner must have known people who. made themselves miserable because their parents or grand parents had suffered from cancer. “I have not any very helpful views from the other side of the world that the methods of dealing with Cancer are. any better than they are here,” -said Mr. Fagge. “I do not think we can-hope for. many years to arrive at anything approaching a-.cure, Until we know more about its causation how cari we hopeto cure?;. There is great need for research and I wish to ask you to support the campaign because, unless we have more knowledge we are not . likely, to arrive at any close understanding >of its causation. Each one can. do. something to help. If you only help somebody, who. is suffering from something they do not understand to go to their doctor you .will have done something to forward the work, of the British Empire cancer campaign.” ■ Dr. J. S. Elliot’t, chairman of fhp.Con? cer Campaign Committee, said that in Wellington £13,000 had been . raised for, re-, search. Christchurch had raised £21,000, Dunedin £25,000 and Auckland only £500Q.; Wellington -possessed 750 millegrams qf radium, Christchurch 659, Dunedin 875, and Auckland only 350. If people did not help themselves the campaign could; not help them.