The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-06-03
DOCTORS GO TO ST. PAUL
ANNUAL MEETING OF AMERICAN
MEDICAL ASSOCIATION.
One OF the Main Topics to He Dis
cussed VIII BE the New Theory
About Cancer.

Drs. W. N Wishard and Louis Burk-
hardt, of Indianapolis, left last night on
the Monon line for the st. Paul meeting
Of the American Medical Association, to
be held June to Z.
Drs A. W Brayton, George J. Cook,
+. c. Heath and L. III. Dunning will so
to-day by the noon train on the Pennsyl-
vania line DR.. f. b. Wynn left on Satur-
day, taking with him large collection
of pathological specimens TO exhibit in
the section on pathology which was
formed last year at the Atlantic City meet
ing through the Influence of the Indiana
State Medical Society, which donated $500
TO meet the expenses of transporting and
exhibiting the Indiana collection. The state
society made a like donation this year for
the same purpose, which will be used by
Dr. Wynn who has been the main per-
sonal factor in the establishment of the
new section. Other physicians will go to-
night and tomorrow morning.
The State Society of Indiana has usually
ION eighty to 100 of its LOO members in
attendance at the national meeting. The
American Medical Association comprises
over u, 600 physicians. and is only second
to the British National Medical Society In
numbers and influence. The Weekly Jour
raj of the association. published at Chi
cage. has circulation of over 1900, and
is sent to every member of the society.
over $4,000 a year is expended on this
publication alone.
Indiana has been honored by having two
presidents of the society during the fifty
three years of its eXistence-the late DIR.
r. Parvin of Indianapolis, and DR.. James
Ii,
Eastman was for six years one of the
trustees of the society, and last year DIR.
Miles F. Porter of Fort Wayne one OF
the most eminent of Indiana surgeons, was
made a. trustee. -,
attract the attention of the physicians
is the causation of cancer, melted In part
by the claims of DR.. Gaylord. of Buffalo,
that he has found constant organism
in the blood of every person that he has
examined with cancer. DR.. Gaylord Is the
pathologist for the New York cancer lab
oratory of the University OF Buffalo, when
is conducted at State expense by a fund of
SIC. 900 appropriated by two successive Leg
islatures of that State. His paper, OF forty
pages was published In the April issue OF
the American Journal of the Medical Sci
ences and has been received rather skep-
tically by the medical scientists of the
United States most OF those w, VINO nave con-
Drs Park, Gaylord and Lyon, all work.
ers in this field. and the first surgeon
terest i'm the questionable statements that
cancer is increasing, that ii attacks young
er persons than formerly-the usual age
limit being past forty-and that m ten years
IL will kill more persons in New York State
than tuberculosis.
IL is well known that in Buffalo the
wards in which most Germans live have
most cancer. and indeed that the fatality
of the disease in this race is three and one
half times that in the native born, and
only exceeded by cancer In the Irish people.
But this is a well-known fact, supported by
census statistics.
The general feeling among conservative
physicians I'm Indiana as expressed at the
late State meeting is that we have as yet
no positive proofs of the parasite of cancer,
though il may exist. They attribute the
apparent increase to more accurate dag
nosis the more careful collection of statis-
tics and the prolongation of human life TO
a period when people old enough TO
have cancer develop. They do not deny
that there are ca ses where cancer is more
preValent-cancer races, cancer towns and
cancer rivers. but this local increase is in
sympathy with the notion of definite can
Ger organism.
Such are some of the points which will
enter into consideration of the question and
give more than usual interest and perhaps
hopefuness to the usually dreary and
pessimistic discussions of cancer among the
surgeons and physicians at this great an
nual meeting.