Cancer

Several weeks last summer Engineer George Albert Soper, managing director of the American Society for the Control of Cancer, loped about Europe with a bundle of banknotes in his hand. In certain capitals he stopped to search out a professor eminent for cancer researches and to invite the personage to a first International Symposium on Cancer Control to be held at Lake Mohonk, N. Y. If, as did happen, the man he wanted hesitated over the expenses of a trans-atlantic voyage, Dr. Soper (he is a doctor of philosophy) was prepared to press expense money upon him, a bit of the $10,000 which John D. Rockefeller had donated last spring for just such contingencies.

Last week the symposium took place with European, Canadian and U. S. specialists attending. Little that they said was new. But the aggregate of the facts presented will have the effect of stirring up public interest in cancer control. After all, that was the main purpose of the symposium.

Frequency. "At and beyond the age of ten in the life table generation of 100,000 persons there would have occurred fifteen years ago 5,874 cancer deaths to the end of life. In 1924, among a similar group of persons at the age of ten, the total cancer toll would have been 8,652. That is to say, the probability of ultimately dying from cancer was increased 47.3 per cent. In 1910 the cancer budget in the life table generation of 100,000 females at the age of ten was 9,850. But under the conditions of 1924 that number increased to 11,957, or 21.4 per cent."--Louis I. Dublin, statistician of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., Manhattan.

Cause. "Recent work tends to strengthen the truth that cancer is not due to a living agent comparable to those responsible for the infectious diseases, nor does it appear to be due to a cytotropic virus. These considerations should lead us to believe that cancer is not a communicable disease and this belief should be spread among physicians and the public.

"It seems, on the other hand, that cancer is a disease of the cell, perhaps even of the cell nucleus which results from an intrinsic physical chemical disturbance, perhaps due to a chemical factor.

"Thus the two great morbid phenomena which attack the organism, inflammation and cancer, appear to us today from the biological point of view distinctly different, one from the other. And perhaps it is because we have mistakenly tried to bring them together that the majority of investigations on the origin of cancer have up to the present time resulted only in failure."--Gustav Roussy of Paris.

"Cancers of the lip, mouth, tongue and tonsil are due mainly to broken or sharp-edged and uneven teeth or to tobacco. Gastric cancer is generally traced to abuse of the stomach. Early and abrupt weaning is a frequent cause of mammary cancer. Altogether, these and other cancers are the result of known causes and can be prevented."--James Ewing of Manhattan. He added that no effective antiseptic has been discovered. He recommended gargling with plain soap and water.

"Cancer of the tongue is about eight times as frequent in men as in women. It is held by investigators of high standing in the cancer field that this difference could be wiped out if men could be induced to take as good care of their mouths as women do, avoiding irritation of all sorts, keeping their mouths clean, seeing that the teeth are in good condition, and in a variety of other ways. Similar methods, it is believed, could be applied to certain cancers in women, and that the present practice of removing from both sexes black moles, which are in such a position as to be rubbed by clothing or otherwise irritated, will render the development of this very serious type of cancer an impossibility."-- Francis Carter Wood of Manhattan.

Xray. "The centre of the stage in all questions concerning the treatment of cancer is occupied by the still unsolved problem of the action of X-rays on normal and malignant the cells. Until this problem has been cleared up from the theoretical point of view I believe that the practical work of treating cancers by X-rays cannot be improved."--Robert Bierich of Hamburg.

Quacks. "Recently the wide use of physical therapeutic methods by a group of more or less illiterate healers has unfortunately brought the problem into prominence again. The devotees of these cults frequently massage tumors in order to drive the lump away. In this they are often too successful. Patients now come into our hospitals with extraordinary distribution of tumor cells following such massage and manipulation. The victims are practically all of them beyond help, owing to the extensive distribution about the body of the embolic particles."--Francis Carter Wood of Manhattan.

Education. "For the control of cancer it is necessary to educate men and women to the importance of seeking advice for nodules, birth marks, warts, moles and chronic ulcers. The significance of such defects is known to well-trained surgeons and their removal is as a rule, simple and safe."--Sir John Bland-Sutton of London.

After the five days of the symposium, Dr. Soper made an abstract of the information presented there: 1) for practical purposes, cancer is not contagious; 2) cancer itself is not hereditary; 3) surgery, radium and X-rays are the only justifiable forms of treatment for cancer; and 4) cure depends upon treatment in the earliest stages.

The conferees cabled greetings to the scientific congress at Duesseldorf (see p. 20) : "Through research and education the scourge of cancer will yet be controlled." Then they traveled to Manhattan for a farewell dinner of the American Society for the Control of Cancer, where Banker Thomas W. Lament presided.