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APPENDIX V.
CANCER CAMPAIGN.
(Report of Medical Officer of Health presented to the Council
on March 6th, 1924).
Much has been written, and more said, recently about cancer and
its prevention: indeed, propaganda work in connection with this
particular disease has been increased since the British Red Cross has
started the cancer campaign. This propaganda work, is, in the opinion
of the Medical Officer of Health, being overdone, and may defeat its
own ends by raising false hopes in the minds of hundreds or thousands
of persons suffering from the disease, or by engendering, in nervous
persons, the fear or dread that they are suffering from it when they are
not. A Sanitary Authority would be well-advised, therefore, to pause
before issuing official circulars broadcast, dealing with the subject of
cancer, its prevention and treatment.
Speaking generally, nothing definite is known about the bacteriology
of the disease, nor are there, at present, any reliable statistics to justify
the statement that X-ray or radium treatment is of value. The large
number of quack remedies on the market are well-known.
It may be that the increased mortality is, in great part, apparent
only, due to improved methods of diagnosis on the one hand, and on
the other hand to the fact that the average age at death has in recent
years been prolonged, thereby allowing cancer (which is a disease of
late adult life) to make its appearance in a larger number of persons
before death from other causes than hithertofore.
There is no reason for supposing that cancer is infectious or contagious—at
least, from present available evidence, and the suggestions
of the existence of cancer houses or cancer districts have not been
proved. Official disinfection, there fore, does not appear to be
called for as a routine. Further, there is no proof that cancer is
hereditary, but it is a common disease of adult life (with greater
incidence in females). If anything definite were known as to the
nature and causes of the disease, the public ought to know officially ;
but, in the absence of present-day definite knowledge, it is, perhaps,
better to hold back official action in so far as the general public is concerned.
The matter is rather one that concerns the Medical Practitioners
and their patients, and more especially research workers, who are at
work in large numbers with a view to finding out the true nature of the
disease and the causes that give rise to it. The British Red Cross,
which has taken over the cancer campaign, would be well-advised, for
the present at least, to restrict its energies and money to research work
rather than to general propaganda work, in the opinion of the Medical
Officer of Health.
Hadden, Best & Co., Ltd., Printers, 5, West Harding St.. London, E.G.