Daily camera. [volume] (Boulder, Colo.) 1891-1928, 1899-10-26
THECANCER PROBLEM
Disease Is Styled "Treason In the
Republic of the Body"
Fiendlsh IEr road. of the seourGs when
Once Adrift In the Body-Ab-
surd Ideas Regarding
the Disease.

DR.. Woods Hutchinson, Of London.
writing on what he denominates the
cancer problem, gives a graphic de-
scription Of the way the disease spreads
and in which animal spores circulate
through the body which is very strik-
ing.
Then comes the last and strangest
act of this weird tragedy. In the
course of the resistless onward march
of these rebel cell columns some of
their skirmishers push through the
wall Of lymph channel OF even, by
some rare chance, a vein, and are swept
away by the stream. Surely, now the
regular lencocyte cavalry have them at
their mercy and can cut them down at
leisure. We little realize the fiendish
resourcefulness of the cancer cell.
One such, adrift in the body, is like
ferret in a rabbit warren; no other cell
can face il for an instant. 1t Simply
floats unmolested along the lymph
channels until its progress is arrested
in some way, when il promptly settles
down wherever it may happen 10 have
landed, begins to multiply and push
out columns in every direction, into
and at the expense Of the surrounding
tissues, and behold, a new cancer or
secondary nodule is born"
DR.. Hutchinson affords curiously
lucid idea of the actual genesis of the
scourge in the body and justifes his
description of it as treason in the re-
public OF the body" Like most loug-
lived Diseases he says. sit is a health
process gone wrong. This is the secret
of half its deadiness and all its unman-
ageableness." The absurd idea thai
cancer has been caused by eating to-
matoes, of course, finds no favor with
the writer. The only evidence that
has yet been adduced in favor of this
attractive explanation is" he says.
that both tomatoes and cancer have
become much more common in the lasl
20 years. which is hardly conclusive.
The argument might with equal force
be applied to postage stamps or the
suffrage" He does not believe, either.
that blow on any part Of the body
can be more than secondary cause OF
cancer. II there are the preeNisting
conditions of cancer an injury may Pre-
cipitate the outbreak and determine
the locality, but there must he the nee
ess airy conditions preeNistiug. This is
declared TO be in accordance with the
balance Of expert opinion. The same
may be said of the possibility of the
pipe producing cancer on the liz of the
smoker.
Ninety per cent. of all men smoke.
while only about two per cent. develop
cancer of the lips or tongue. and in
ma jority Of cases the disease breaks
out in some part of the lips not affected
by The pipe. There seems good rea-
son 10 believe that the INSERTED alarm
ing increase OF the malady is more APP
parent than real and is due to increased
accuracy of diagnosis and record How
ever this may be, it is terrible fact
that one person in every twelve above
the age of 30 is doomed to die of this
m5lady. Dr. Hutchinson seems hope
ful Of a solution OF this riddle OF the
1 sphinx, and is certainly very CHEEKY in
what he has to say about its treat-
mont:
Fifty years ago we operated chiefly
with the hope of prolonging life or re
lieving pain; now we expect 10 cure
from 30 TO GO per cent Of our cases If
we can see them early enough. This
great improvement is due partly to the
wonderful advance of modern sur
gerry, but more to greater skin in rec
ognizing the very earliest stages Of the
disease and to n wider and more intel
ligent recognition ON the part of the
patients of an early diagnosis. 1t can
not be too strongly emphasized that
cancer in its early stages is distinctly
durable disease; in its later almost in
durable. '-Contemporarv Review.