The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-04-22
SPREAD OF CANCER.
GATHER STUDY INTO ITS. FIRE.
aUENCY AND NATURE

OeDartment of the University
3 RuffaIo, Describes 1t as Para
at. Non-HeritabIe, Perhaps Con-
rious and Certainly Increasing.
From the Medical News.
rsa object of this paper is threefold.
~ emphasize the ever-increasing
orrality rate in this state from cancer;
I'D TO epitomize some of the more re-
-, studies in regard TO its etiology, and
.sreciauy the arguments which point
-,ora and more toward its parasitic origin;
.s;r71v 70 bring TO your notice the work
4 .1rs,5v done and in prospect in the new
| i, horatory started under the auspices of
,bis state and located in Buffalo.
With regard to the increasing mortality
r,te if would consume too much of your
,tr,s if were to read tables which have
,osp carefully prepared from the returns
4 If the state Board of Health, but the prin-
\ oioal facts brought out can be briefly laid
before you.
These tables show with regard to an
/ other disease whose cause used to be equal
u, unknown that since the discovery of the
/ nacuIiar organism to which it is due its
mortality rate has steadily declined. al
hide of course, to consumption. Since its
/ c,pe4 has been known intelligent and prop
er,v directed efforts have produced a very
marked decrease in its ravages. On the
| other hand. the death rate from cancer Is
| steadily increasing, not alone in New York
state but apparently, in all parts of the
world There is, furthermore, every rea-
son to infer that this increase will I'M
doubtedly continue until its minute causes
are positively determined.
4 So far as we have ben able to learn, can
Ger is now the only disease which is stead
Wales, for instance, where most careful
statistics are kept, the cancer death rate
has risen from to 5,646 of population In
1910 to / in every 1903 of population in 1896;
this is. in fifty years the proportion has
increased nearly five times. All over this
country the increase is quite alarming,
while the figures pertaining especially to
our own state are equally significant, and
quite Incompatible with its increase In
population. Thus, for instance, in 1887
there were in this state 1888 deaths from
cancer and Il 500 from consumption. In
1898 there were Ass deaths from cancer
A and only u, 552 from consumption. This in
crease in cancer mortality is certainly not
. due 10 improvements in methods of diagno-
4 sis but rather the reverse is the case,
since many cases which We're formerly di-
n agnosed as cancer are now properly class
4 flied where they belong in other lists. In
4 none Of the other diseases tabulated by
4 the State Board of Health, nor In any
i government reports, has there been such
Il an immense increase as in cancer. II is the
4 only disease tabulated which shows a pro-
4 gressive and steady increment by months
and by years.
\ careful study of all these tables per-
mHs one to make the following startling
prophecy: If during the next ten years the
n relative death rates are maintained We
shall find that ten years from now, viz,
in 1909, there will be more deaths in New
Il York state from cancer than from con-
F. sumption, smallpox and typhoid fever
n combined.
f. Il is most interesting, again, to see how
\ cancer is particularly prevalent in certain
regions. There is a recent report by DR..
4 SymOns medical officer OF Bath, England,
who has found that in his territory can
Ger is 80 per cent. more frequent than in
reighboring localities. But the most ex-
traordinary and significant typographical
and statistical study of recent times is that
of Behia, in the concluding numbers of the
Centrablatt fur Bakteriologis for 1898,
which pertains to the little town of Luck
an, in Germany, where within the past
tWenty-three years there have been sew
enty-three death from cancer in an area
covered by two or three city squares, as
many as four deaths from it occurring in
4 one house and where the disease has as
4 sumed the proportions and the importance
OF an endemic. To this paper should be
A given the careful consideration of all who
are interested in the study, though, to be
sure, similar endemic appearances of the
disease have been noted in other parts of
me world, and in mider form may be said
10 nave almost prevailed in time past in
ceI'aln localities in Western New York,
where the disease is exceptionally preva
4 Nh' Probably 1t Is not necessary to do
more than to rehearse these very brief
Il Facts IN order to bring wildly to your
nllhds this great and increasing source of
uanser to our population.
1t Is possible to sweep aside, with one or
S"o possible exceptions, everything that
Has been brought forward until within re-
ceht years as an explanation of this dis
ease The old theories of irritation, of
perverted nerve centers, of heredity, etc,
odihot Tor moment stand in view of the
s7diching scientific methods of to-day. We
na'e gotten as far as this a present that
wy AhoW that cells act as they do in pro-
uucius the disease either as the result of
Son'e external or internal stimulus is not
- certainly demonstrated, though things
po'Ni more and more toward its parasitic
e. N Hf.v,N H.