The National tribune., 1891-03-05
BEALTH BINTS
For Old and Young
BY FELIX l. OSWALD. ". D.
Author OF Physical EducatiOn"; Household
Remedies; The Bible OF Nature" etc.
CHAPTER Gil.
cANcERors AFFECTIONS.

cASCERoUs AFFECTIONS.
The time is not very long past when physi-
clans who did not believe in the proved exist
enee Of any incurable disease were inclined to
make an exception in the case Of cancer. Sup
posed cures OF the terrible disorder they con
sidered as merely temporary. or else refused TO
believe that the cured tumor had been really
cancer.
One circumstance which really justified that
doubt was the once general excess Of prompt
ness in TeSOrting TO the use Of the knife. For
time, indeed, the torture of the disorder
could thus be checked, but in nine out Of ten
cases the tumor reappeared in the very place
from which IL had been removed. Occasionally
il attacked more than one organ at once and
the exhaustion consequent upon the operation
lessened the chance Of eventual recovery. The
use Of eaustics was found slower and hardly
less painful TO the patient, though il seemed TO
delay the reappearance Of the disorder.
Up to the beginning Of the present century
the attempt 10 cure cancer without any opera
tion whatever was generally considered hope
less, but that possibility was at last strikingly
illustrated in the ease Of the famous Austrian
Field-hsrshai, Radetzki. In 1888. when the
gallant soldier had already passed his 10th
year, a tumor about the size Of bean made
its appearance at the inner corner Of his right
eye, and IN spite Of all applications continued
to increase in size till it spread all over the
right side Of the face and almost forced the
eyeball from its socket. It's extension across
the right cheek showed whitish radiatons
upon a livid background and other charac-
acteristics that left doubt that the affection
was cancer Of a specially malignant type. Ra-
detzki, like most old men Of an observant turn
Of mind, was something Of a doctor himself
and remembered scores of cases in which ex-
tirpItiOn Of the tumor had only added 20 the
misery Of tho patient; but the impOrtunities Of
his friends would, after ALL have induced him
10 submit 10 a routine Surgeon, il the proposed
operation had not involved the inevitable loss
Of his best eye. His left eye was already more
than half useless in consequences OF a mechan-
cal injury, and rather than risk total blindness
by the loss Of the other, he concluded 10 trust
the matter to the skill of q physician who had
given his verdict against the necessity Of q sur
gical operation. "Tincture Of thuja, warmed,
for external application" was the doctors pre-
scription. and aided by internal remedies and
certain changes Of diet, actually effected COM
plete cure before the end Of the fourth week.
EadetZki's eye was safe, and he lived II years
longer, as If to aid his physician in establish
ing the fact that tho cure had been more than
temporary.
There could be no donbt ia that case Of sew
eral other points claimed by the advocates Of
the sanitary mode Of treatment, but it ia true
that great variety Of skin affections are occa-
sionally mistaken for cancer, and treated and
cured as such by ignorant quacks. Cancer
doctors" who claim to have cured nine out Of
10 cases in less than n month" etc, are regard
ed with just suspicion by expert Surgeons,
and their magic remedies could have been
dispensed with altogether. 10 is equally true,
however. that the line between cancerous af-
fections and harmless tumOrs is rather difficult
10 iraw, or rather it is sadly certain that
large number Of ordinary swellings and in
Examinations may, under certain circumstances,
assume the form Of true cancer. Sir James
Paget, who made the question the topic Of
special lecture, enumsrates not less than 26
such disorders, and almost as many different
"proKmate causes " Of aggrayatiOn. A mans
hand, stihrned by a common swelling, may be
accidentally hit by the blow Of drivers whip,
and a tumOr, which otherwise would have
healed in the course Of a week may extend 20
the arm and degenerate into something which
no Surgeon would be able 10 distinguish from
q true cancer. A sore on the lips, brought in
contact with pungent condiments, mustard,
etc, may assume a cancerous character; to-
baceo smoke may produce a similar effect upon
the palate or the membranes of tho throat.
The late Emperor Frederic Of Germany (the
father Of the present Kaiser) was strongly sus-
pected Of owing his fate to his fOudness for
strong cigars. He learned to smoke in his
cadet years, and afterward. in times Of eIeep-
tiOnal excitement, as during the FrancO-P Prus-
sian war, would often smoke almost continu-
ally, even in bed and at his writing table and
thus twice set his pillow afre by dropping asleep
with a cigar in his mouth Nicotine poison
permeatcd his system in a way that made every
triling sore apt to become malignant, and
though very temperate in other respects, he
tried in vain TO practice moderation in the use
Of tobacco, and little sore spot at the upper
extremity of the windpipe became more and
more troublesome, and at last developed into .
fatally malignant inflammation.
Want Of cleanliness so frequently becomes
the cause Of cancer-like disorders that modern
pathologists have special names for "sOot
cancer" and petroleum cancer" the latter
an occasionally very serious affection OF miners
and other labOrers obliged to handle coal oil
the former a still more frequent disorder Of
chimney sweeps. Blacksmiths now and then
owe similar inflammation to sores repeatedly
irritated by flying sparks, and cancer Of the
mouth may be Occasioned by the sharp prong
OF decaying tooth. The mouth, the stomach
the nostrils and the breast are specially apt to
be attacked by cancer. but no part Of the body
is entirely exempt from the risk Of such affec-
tous.
Professor PlatOn Kubasef, of Moscow, Russia
claims TO have traced cancer TO the development
of bacillus, which he describes as "rod-
shaped micrObe, so small that its length amounts
10 less than One-thrd the diameter Of a red
blood corpuscle," and which, by inoculation,
animals; for strange TO say. some four footed
creatures, aud all sorts of domestic birds ap-
pear proof against the virus Of cancer lymph.
Cats and rabbits are the most susceptible of
cOntagion In that respect, and, out of ten
rabbits inoculated, eight died from eachexy
general blood d-pOisoning) in less than two
months.
ON the microhe theory, it seems puzzle how
cancer can be transmitted from generation 10
generation, though there Y no dOubt that, in
some Of its forms. the fatal disorder is quite as
hereditary as pulmonary consumption. /" Is it
merely the predspOsitiOn that is handed down
from sire to son, or shall we assume that the mi
crobes are transmitted in the act Of generation
or imbibed with the mothers milk?
Or, more likely, are they Inhaled with the air
breathed in the paternal mansion ?"-questious
which might be answered in the words of his
countryman, Petit. the famous Paris anatOmist
Doctor" learned French lady once asked
him, $50 eminent a scholar as you are must
SUI ely be able To cure all diseases mankind is
heir TOT" Pardon, madam" said the modest
doctor. we physicians can only be compared to
hackney -coachmen in a large city; they know
all the streets and every corner in the town,
but they totally ignorant of what is going
on within the houses"
IL has also been observed that there is In more
than one respect, a curious correlation between
cancer and tubeTcular consumption. In fami-
lies where talnt Of lung diseases has been in