The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-12-05
National Fight Against Cancer Campaign of Education to Check It's Spread-Hope Tn
 Early Treatment
ucation to Check It's Spread
GRAHAM RoMEYN TAYLOR
Early Treatment

Exclusive Service The Survey Press
 Bureau.)
 Death by cancer claims 75,000 people every year in the United States. The scourge is steadily increasing. But hope for it's control is growing, for we are coming more widely to understand that the disease is curable if treated in the early stages. This Knowledge with reference to tuberculosis started the great campaign against the white plague. Similarly, a nation wide fight against cancer is being organized by the recently formed American Society for the Control of Cancer.
 In spite of premature enthusiasm over radtum and the conscienceless statements of quacks, the surgeons knife is the only known cure. Prompt diagnosis and an immediate thorough operation offer a high probability of saving the patients life, while delay and neglect mean certain and terrible death To spread this simple gospel to every corner of the land, the society is beginning an active campaign of publicity and education
 THD CANCER DEATH RATE.
 Only tuberculosis and pneumonia claim a greater number of victims an- nua1Iy than cancer. For the decade ending with 1911 the cancer death rate has increased from 65.S per 100000 of the population in 1901 to 93.9 in 1911. With minor exceptions, the increase has appeared at all groups and for both sexes. The estimate of 75,000 deaths for 1913 is made by 50 we'll known a statistfcian as Frederick l.. Hoffman.
 CANCER A DESTROYER OF HOMES
 From @ social standpoint, 1t Is of pe- culiar interest to note that cancer Is distinctly a disease of adult life Deaths from cancer make up one-six- teenth of the mortality from all causes at the ages of 45 and over. This means that cancer directs its terrific onslaught largely against mothers and fathers of families. A eplendidly or gan1zed campaign is being directed against infant mortality, another of the great controuabIe causes of deaths. The loss of baby's life is of course a sorrow and too often doubIy sad be- cause it is preventabIe. It represents also the loss of potentially valuable unit of society. But the immediate total of misery and suffering entaiIed upon the community may well be con sidered greater when cancer removes often with terrible agony, the parent who is the main source of support of family.
 SOCIAL CONTROL OF CANCER
 Society then must organize it's de- lenses against this terrible enemy as it is so effectively doing in the case of tuberculosis, typhoid fever and many other diseases subject to administra- tive control. The problem, however, is somewhat different. When society turns to medical science and asks the cause of cancer and how to prevent it, the answer. is: We are trying to learn, but do not yet know" In the meantime, however, modern med ica1 Knowledge gives us one fact and one warning of the utmost significance. Cancer cannot be cured, but 1t can be extirpated from the system by inn mediate recourse to skilled surgery. The patients life can be saved in al- most every instance if the disease is discovered early enough and a single thorough operation is at once per formed.
 SURGERY THE ONLY SAFETY.
 Cancer is not at first a general dis ease of the blood and despair and sur render in face of the disease is not warranted. We now know that can cer is. always at first a, local disease which can often be completely re- moved by adequate surgery. The knife is the only known sure remedy, and the terrible scourge gives it's victim only one chance. Delay means not simply danger, but inevitable death. And again the result of delayed or in complete operation is always always fatal. The percentage of recovery af- ter a second operation is desperately low.
 THE CLAIM OF RADIUM.
 Radium is considered by enthusiasts to promise a curative agency of un- matched benef1cence to mankind, but we must know much more than we do now of it's effects before we can abate in the slightest the urgent emphasis on surgical treatment. We have not yet been able in this country to make an authoritative determination of it's value Few American surgeons have sufficient radium available to give a through trial especially as 1t appears that extensive doses sometimes cure when smaller amounts have but little effect.
 Only time will tell what percentage