The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-12-08
Physicians Say Modern Life Luxury
 Helps Much To Spread Disease.

From the Brooklyn Eagle.
 To nothing so ! ieh as to the luxuries indnlged in by our modern civilization and conditions which the manner of llv- Ing In big cities has brought about, do | atttlpute the growing prevalence of deaths rom cancerous diseases" says pr Lewis B. Pitcher, of Brooklyn, who has had wide experience in the treatment or persons afflicted with that malady. 1t was his concise Explanation of the re- gently submitted report of Eugene II. Porter. state commissioner of health. Whlch' Tn showing an increase of cancer deaths, commented on the menacing pro- portions the disease had assumed as a cause of mortality.
 T do not mean by that" the physician continued, that the inroads of inc pe- eullar disease have been solely among the rich. That would be far from true. but the fact remains that our manner of life ienhs itself 10 the development and spread of the disease"
 The death statistics on file in the office or the Brooklyn board of health seem to snow an alarming growth of the disease review of the deaths from cancerous diseases in this borough for the last ten years reveals an increase from 1898 to 1906 of 342 deaths a year
 The increase in population since 1898 nas been very great in Brooklyn and the sroWth III the number of the boroughs inhabitants has naturally figured in the causes of an increase in cancer cases and deaths. Another cause for the seeming abnormal conditions was given by pr. Pilchcr:
 All diseases travel in waves" he said There are times of ebb and flow: and even the fact that there have been more deaths from cancer in the past few years does not necessarily mean that there is an increasing preyalency. It is true that there are many cases today diagnosed as Internal cancer which were not recog- nzed by the medical profession as such ten or twenty years ago At that time they were set down more vaguely or as general disorders. Statistics, too, are bet ter kept now, and physicians reports are more carefully scrntinized for the manner of death than was customary in former times"
 In the general series of attempts to dis cover a partial remedy or preventive for cancer. physicians in Europe and this country claim to have had success with instruments which utilize for therapeutic purposes some of the spectroscopic ele- ments of light. Among the most promi- nent workers in this field in America is a Brooklyn physician In his laboratory is complete equipment of cancer treat ing apparatus. 1t includes the Knrade coil. the Finsen light secured from Co.,
 
 Minim surgeon general of the Russian army The latter is electrical bulb of blue glass and from 1t emanates only the ultraviolet rays of light. The Brooklyn physician claims many recoveries of can cer by his apparatus. the most eficaclous of which, he says, Is the Finsen light. A trip through his offices with the cancer specialist is almost like visit into the den of necromancer. The manipulation of a switch will throw into one room a flood of violet coloring and in another the pene- trating beams of the yellow X-rays. A copper switch sends so amperes and no volts into the main compartment of the Finsen apparatus. The cartoons form the receiving poles and a beam of light-cold. hard. glttering-ilters down in the tele- scopic projectiles through the crystal lenses. It is this projected light. th,s physician claims that has been the means of preventing the growth and sometimes | efrecting the cure In obstinate cases.