The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-07 00:00:00

IS CANCER INCURABLE?

With reference to recent statements of the sup.
posed discovery of a cure for cancer used by the
Rev. Mr. Reed, Mr. Weeden Cooke, one of the sur-
geons of the Cancer Hospital, writes :
" Mr. Reed's refusal to accept Dr. Ross's proposed
commitree of inquiry exhibits want offaith in his owl
powers, and with your permission I will endeavoui
to show that he is wise in shrouding himself in the
mystery peculiar to his newly-adopted calling.
The patient of his who came under my observation
in the Cancer Hospital, travelled from the country
to place himself under his treatment. She was in
poor circumstances, but having all confidence in the
recommendation she had received, she was willing
for so great a boon as was held out to her to spend
some of her savings. She accordingly paid her
railway fares and the usual honorarium (X 1 ls.) to
her new clerical doctor. Subsequently, however.
upon her representation that her purse would not
bear these depletions, the rev. doctor was kind
enough to reduce them to a smaller amount. He
will think it uncharitable of me to mention these
small matters, but in affairs of this sort the public
should know the whole facts. According to Mrs.
H.'s statement to the hospital nurse when she first
went to the rev, gentleman her breast had a
cancerous tumour in it, but the skin was entire.
After using some ointment _he gave her to

apply, the of the whole breast was in-
flamed and ulcerated, and the cancerous tumour
remained as before. She was in tolerable strength
when she began the treatment, and she left off be•
cause she was so weakened that she feared she
would not he able to return to her family. She
then came to the Cancer Hospital, unable to walk.
Fortunately, we were enabled to heal the large ul-
cerated surface which had been produced, and her
general health was again so much improved that
she could walk some distance, and ultimately re-
turned to her friends. Upon inquiry since we hear
that she remained tolerably well for six weeks aftet
her return home, and then died very suddenly. Of
course, gross neglect on the part of the patient, or
want of faith in the ultimate cure by these infallible
remedies will, in the reverend gentleman's opinion,
account for the miscarriage of his specific in this
instance.

" Sir, it would be well for the public if you would
allow me, as briefly as possible, to give you a short
history of the pretenders to infallibility in the treat-
ment of this dreadful disease who have arisen dur-
ing the last 10 years.
"My earliest experience brought me in contact
with Dr. Vries, a swarthy West Indian, be-chained
and be-frilled, confident in his means of curing
cancer, and especially those diseases which most
puzzle the regular practitioner. I watched his
treatment in six cases of eancer for three months,
and none were in the slightest degree benefited.
London did not appreciate him, but Paris did.
There he found accomplices as well as dupes, and
for a time his reign was triumphant. In that
treacherous weak moment which comes to even
great men at times, he accepted a challenge to treat
patients at the Hotel Dien, under the astute eye of
M. Velpeau, the author of an important work on
cancer. His failure was, as you may imagine, com-
plete, and very shortly afterwards we find M.
Vries sold up, his salons de consultation closed, his
carriage and horses put up to auction, and the be-
nefactor of his species in prison, charged with
fraud and homicide.

" There is another' cancer-curer' residing still, I
believe, in London, whose whereabouts was indi-
cated to me not long since, by the inquiry of the
registrar of deaths. ' Can you tell me,' said the re-
gistrar, how it is that I register so many deaths
from cancer in my district of late ?' Of course, the
sad disclosure was accounted for by the discovery
that the cancer-curer' above referred to lived and
thrived within his district. Not long since, sir,
your own columns gave world-wide 'fame to an
American importation which was to supersede all
old world British notions. In the prairies of the
States grew a beautiful white flower, which was
much affected by the lovely squaws of the Dela-
"ware country. It was said to have remarkable
effects in dispersing their tumours. A doctor, more
cunning than their own medicine man, brought it
to this couutry—setting aside for a time the claims
of his own native land—and here he turned his
white flowers into many golden guineas. He era-
dicated cancerous tumours at 100 guineas each,
The skin was first burnt off by aquafortis. Having
thus established a raw surface; the white flowers,
as was supposed, but as subsequently appeared a
strong caustic—chloride of zinc—was spread over
the surface ; this destroyed with much suffering, a
portion of the tumour. It was then scored with a
scalpel, and the zinc and white flowers put into the
crevices thus made. More scoring and sad suffer-
ing followed for five or six weeks, when the
tumour, which might have been removed under
chloroform, and therefore without pain, by
the knife in two minutes, was brought away.
There was then the healing of a large surface to be
effected, and the recovery of health, wasted by so
long and dreadful an operation, to be brought about.
Because it was vaunted as new, many poor crea-
tures submitted to all this torture more than once,
and the disease returned as ruthlessly and more so
than it does when the benignant chloroform and
the quick scalpel•do the work without any suffer•
ing. Will these warnings be of any avail to the
sufferers from this malady ? Do you, sir, assure
them, as you may with earnest sincerity, that there
is no royal road to the discovery so anxiously sought
for. I believe it will be made in time by careful
induction, by the study of large numbers of cases,
by the readiness to weigh all suggestions which
may be made, from whatever quarter they may
come, and, above all, by watching and assisting the
actions of nature herself—helping her in her salu-
tary movements, and putting away from the patient
all those lowering, depressing agents which society
and circumstances, and medical theory uninformed
by experience, gather round the object of our soli-
citude."