The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1905-05-10
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tury ago most persons were more or
less pitted by smallpox; to-day such
Disagreement is rare. Typhus fever
is almost extinct with us, and cholera
Is no longer feared in Europe or Amer
lea, because the source Of infection is
known and easily guarded against. In
India 100000 persons have died OF
the plague since the latest outbreak,
and there are $4,000 cases a week,
ninety per cent. Of which are tatal.
In Europe such conditions prevailed at
the time of the Black Death, but under
modern sanitary conditions the plague
is no serious menace, as recent expert
ence in San Francisco and Australia
has shown. Typhoid fever is still prev
aIent, but so easily ~preventable that,
as a medical man has said, for every
fatal case of it somebody ought to be
hanged for criminal carelessness. The
rayages of consumption. 0iphtheria n
many other fatal maladies have been
j greatly decreased.
4 There are. however. deadly diseases
that have hitherto baf1led all the Skill
and ingenuity of medical observers and
experimenters. At this moment con-
siderable alarm is leftover the startling
increase in the number Of cases Of cere-
b~ro-spinal meningitis, of which we
surely know neither the nor the
cure. But the disease which has re-
sisted most ~obstinately is cancer. Five
wears ago. when the cancer mortality in
this country was 10000, making it rank
as the eighth disease in the order of
fatalities. an aggressive campaign was
organized simultaneously in America
and several European countries. In
England the Prince who is now King
personally assumed the Presidency OF
the Cancer Research Fund; In Ger
many cancer research laboratories
were founded in several cities. and III
this country a bequeSt made by Mrs.
Caroline Brewer Croft led to the forma-
ton of a commission Of patholoSlsts
for carrying on research work in The
. laboratories Of Harvard University and
~ the hospitals in Boston. The third re-
mort of this commission is the latest
official utterance on the subject, yet it
must be said that it does little except
deepen the mystery surrounding this
terrible disease.
In the last Harvard Graduates Maya
zine, Edward Fl. Nichols discusses the
work of the Harvard committee, and is
Obliged to confess at the end that it
has on the whole been destructive and
not constructive" It has shown, he
thinks, that the idea that cancer is due
TO q parasitic yeast is erroneous; 1t
has shown that the peculiar cancer
bodies are not protocol, and are not
parasites, but are due to a modified Sc
erection in cancer cells. "Scme foreign
observers have shown that it is posi-
BILE to transplant a certain type Of can
Ger from one animal to another of the
same species, but this transference rep
resents transportation Of cells, not in
lection ~ a parasite. And they have
produced a serum which inhibits the
growth of a peculiar type of animal
cancer, but no n has produced a
serum of a character which has any
effect upon human cancer" In view
of the great diminution in diphtheria
mortality since the employment Of the
serum treatment. this result is most
discouraging. The Harvard committee
inclines to accept Cohnheim's hypoth-
esis that lancer is due to malign cell
growth.
At the same time, it would be IN
wise to halt a moment in the efforts to
detect the secret of malignant disease.
AS DR.. Mayo Robson Of the Royal Col
tege Of Surgeons remarked in a recent
lecture: "How many years were spent
In fruitless search before Koch found
the tubercle bacillus?-a discovery that
has placed tuberculosis on quite an
other platform, and one which bids
fair to the stamping out Of the disease.
Does any one doubt the origin of
measles, scarlet fever, or syphilis from
organisms, yet how much uncertainty
there Isl" He makes the interesting
suggestion that the cause of the cccen-
tricities Of the cancer may lie in or
ganisms infinitely smaller than the
smallest micrococcus, and he calls at
tention in connection with this to the
recent startling enlargement Of the
power of microscopes, which would
make the eye OF q fly, for instance, ap-
pear as an object twenty-four feet long
by thirteen broad.
The discovery. within a few years. Of
the mosquito as q carrier Of yellow
fever and malaria, suggests the wisdom
Of making the field of research as wide
as possible, and exploring every nook
and corner of the woods where Grim
iaal disease turks. Who knows but
that insects are the provoking u
of cancer? A case is on record of a
man being bitten or tie cheek by a
large fly in the exact spot where in a
short time an epithelioma grew; and
Moran showed that by introducing
ieas which had occupied the cages of
cancerous mice into cages occupied by
healthy mice. the latter with few ex-
captions developed cancer. For the
present, too. it may, be wise not to dis
card the notion that the cancer germ
may come into the system with insult
iciently washed, uncooked vegetables.
The tomato theory is, of course. the
veriest NONSENSE; if tomatoes were the
cause Of cancer there would be 10000
cases in this country to one in Ger
many. But, regarding vegetables in
general, the observations of DR.. Bella