Cancer Handbook

Every mature person worries about cancer, yet few are acquainted with the simple facts of cancer prevention and cure. In an educational attempt to save some of the 150,000 U. S. citizens who are killed by the disease every year, Clarence Cook ("Pete") Little, famed researcher on cancer and heredity and head of the American Society for the Control of Cancer, this week published the first calm, sensible handbook on cancer.* Significant facts:

> Contrary to recent newspaper reports, "there is no evidence that cancer is a germ disease." Cancer is a wildfire growth of "anarchist cells" which have broken away from the normal rhythm of cell growth. These anarchist cells are found everywhere in nature: in mice, apes, dogs, horses, fishes, birds, insects, plants.

>No age group is immune from some type of cancer. Newborn or very young children may have cancer of the kidneys or brain. Adolescents may have cancer of the bones or connective tissue, especially in the legs and arms. Cancer of the uterus or breast occurs in women at menopause, but cancer of the stomach or intestine rarely occurs in women under 50. Cancer of the prostate gland usually attacks only old men. Cancer of the skin may appear at any age, but most skin cancers are found in old persons.

>Suspicious signs of cancer: all lumps in the body; any irregular or abnormal discharge of fluid or blood from any body opening; any sore which does not heal in two weeks; small tender spots on the lips and tongue of smokers; loss of appetite and indigestion; persistent hoarseness not caused by a cold; moles, warts and wens. Every person has an average of 27 small blemishes on his body, says Dr. Little. At middle age these "small centers of overgrowth of tissue" may start to grow again and become tender. Prompt treatment prevents them from becoming cancerous.

>Only three scientific means of treating cancer are Xray, surgery and radium. But by these three methods physicians have cured 30,000 cases of cancer in the last five years.

>Only sure, scientific method of determining whether an organ is cancerous is microscopic analysis. With a sharp, hollow steel needle a pathologist draws from a suspected growth a bit of living tissue, which is immediately frozen by a stream of carbon dioxide from a high-pressure tank. Then it is cut into thin sections and mounted on a microscope slide. The whole procedure takes only a few minutes, is usually performed while a patient lies on the operating table. If microscopic examination shows that the cells are malignant, a surgeon can start to operate at once.

> In his laboratory at Bar Harbor, Me., Dr. Little every year breeds 50,000 mice with hereditary cancers. But this does not mean that cancer is hereditary in humans, he says, for the mice may be inbred for 15 or 20 generations before cancer becomes part of their physiological heritage. "Life . . . superimposes so many varying circumstances and facts that any hereditary tendency so far detected may easily become swamped by other influences. . . . The risk of having cancer because one or both parents had it is not of practical importance."

*CIVILIZATION AGAINST CANCER--Farrar & Rinchart ($1.50).

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