VIEWS OF CANCER.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XLIX, Issue 151, 12 September 1928, Page 1

VIEWS OF CANCER.

CAUSE OF DISEASE. NEW AMERICAN THEORY. LONDON, July 27. Sir W. Arbuthnot Lane declares that the Cancer Congress is working on wrong lines. He may not be right, but the views of an extremist are often useful in guiding the rank and file in a proper direction. Writing in the “Daily Mail,” Sir W. Arbuthnot Lane says:— “It must seem somewhat futile to pick out cancer, that last link in the chain of conditions which result from the absorption of poisonous products from a dirty intestine (commonly spoken of as intestinal auto-intoxica-tion) and to consider it apart from the many other diseases, which do

not exist in communities that eat proper food and have normal habits. “Let the public consider this matter for themselves and realise that disease, as we know it among white people, is* due to a single cause, and that the elimination of that cause can free the community from an immeasurable amount of illness. It is neces-

sary to quote one statement alone, made by perhaps the most expert observer in dietetics, Colonel M‘ Garrison, who is employed by the Indian Medical Service to study food and disease, writes as follows:—‘For nine vears of my professional life my duties lay in a remote part of the Himalayas, among isolated races, far removed from civilisation. Certain of these races are of magnificent physique, preserving until late in life the characters of youth; they are unusually fertile and long-lived, and endowed with nervous system of notable stability. During the period of my association with these people (nine years) I never saw a case of asthenic dyspepsia, of gastric or duodenal ulcer, of mucous colitis, or of cancer, although my operating list avej-aged over 400 operations a year.’ “This statement is irrefutable and is the experience of one of the most able and practical researchers in the world, who combines the usual laboratory knowledge with an extensive medical experience, a combination which is as ideal as it is rare among researchers.

“Let us act upon this knowledge, and do not let us lose onr commonsense in the development of special senses.

“My association with the British Empire Cancer Campaign at its initiation ceased abruptly as soon as I realised what appeared to me to be the utter futility of its methods and objects. In spite of the vast sums of money expended on cancer research in America, nothing of a practical nature has resulted, for this reason—that research has fallen into the hands of experts who dealt only with one result of civilisation and had no grasp whatever of general conditions.

’ “Not until a broader inquiry is undertaken into the causation not only of cancer but of all filth diseases which exist only in civilisation will anv real result he obtained.” NEW THEORY FOR AMERICA. A new theory as to the cause of cancer was explained by Dr. James B. Murphy, of New York, at the international conference organised in London by the British Empire Cancer Campaign. Dr. Murphy, after 16 years’ work, is convinced that cancer is not caused by a virus hut by a ferment, that is to say, the disease is produced within the body and not by an outside agent. His theory runs directly counter to that of Dr. W. E. Gye and Mr J. E. Barnard, who three years ago aroused world-wide discussion by announcing’ their discovery of a living virus.

Dr. Murphy efplained that after many years of transplantation they had never transferred a type of chicken tumor to other species of fowls, and he added. “The chicken tumors produce tumors only in chickens, and each agent reproduces the distinctive texture and character of the individual tumor; they withstand more ultra-violet light than any known living cells so far studied; and they give evidence of forming a chemical union with tissues of susceptible animals, ’ ’

He declared he had produced a protein fraction which caused tumors in fowls with great regularity, and might be regarded as the essential “agent,” and he concluded: “It is hardly conceivable that the active fraction which I have thus obtained, a substance purified by repeated precipitations, could carry with it through all these manipulations any living organism or virus. To me the enzyme-like nature (fermentation) of the principle seems to have been conclusively established, but there may be some who would still maintain that, in spite of all, the possibility of a virus is not excluded. The final and conclusive proof must be the production of the same substance from materials which do not contain a virus. This has been accomplished.”

A leading British authority on cancer said: “Dr. Murphy’s statement is of the greatest importance. If it is confirmed by the experiments of others it will have a profound effect on the future of cancer research and prepare the ground for further investigations. This discovery, if confirmed, is most suggestive and indicates that the cause of cancer may be found in glandular secretions.”