TREATMENT OF CANCER

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16788, 4 May 1926, Page 8

TREATMENT OF CANCER

GERMAN SCIENTIST'S CLAIM. Dr. 11. M. Mitchell, senior honorary surgeon of !he Liverpool Hospital for Cancer and Skin Diseases, in appealing nt the annual meeting of the institution for subscriptions towards the reconstruction of the hospital, said that a leading German scientist, whose name he was not at liberty to disclose, now claimed that by means of a cleverly devised apparatus he could examine a few drops of a patient's blood and defeat cancer in its early stages in any organ Of the body. In addition, the scientist could, he said, by examining a patient's blood six months after an operation, tell whether the operation had been a successful one in removing nil traces of cancer from the affected parts. This was a very important advance in medical science, and ho believed that we were near the dawn of a great discovery, which would bring consolation and comfort to many anxious hearts. Dr. Mitchell added: "The discovery was made by a German scientist under whom I have studied. He has been working for some four or live years, and has evolved an entirely novel method. .Mis apparatus is quite original, and oft' the lines of any previous research.. It consists of instruments' for measuring blood*re-actions spectrascopically. Ordinary blood, examined in this manner, gives certain bands of colour, anil this scientist has discovered that in a pro-rancor-ous condition the blood gives quite different re-actions. 1 have seen this method demonstrated in Liverpool, quite privately. Nol only can the scientist tell the presence of Ihr,se abnormal conditions which arc looked upon as Hie forerunners of cancer, but he lias also demonstrated frequently that he can actually tell Hie precise organ of the body in which the cancer is located or may develop. His findings were supported at the demonstralions in Liverpool, and at the demonstrations iic has given elsewhere, by t'nc work of the surgeon and the pathologist. The method is all in keeping with the best tendencies of modern medical research; that is, it is designed to prevent, rather than cure. Its clinical application will undoubtedly be to enable doctors to detect cancerous conditions before they have developed into actual growths ,and then ether methods of clinical treatment —such, for instance, as Hie one which is being followed in Liverpool, that of introducing certain colloids of heavy metal in the bloodstream—will be adopted."

A leading authority on cancer told a reporter concerning litis claim of the German scientist: "Although it cannot be denied that, such a discovery is possilde, investigations into the conditon of the blood have been made for so many years without success that such a claim must be received with scepticism."