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89
[1908
This disease is one which for many years has attracted very great and
serious public attention; and well it might, for of the women living at the age
of 35 years 1 out of every 9 dies from it. The general opinion is that cancer is
increasing, and consequently its cure and prevention have become matters of the
very utmost importance.
In writing on this subject recently, Dr. James Ewing, Professor of Pathology
in Cornell University Medical College, and President of the American Society for
Cancer Research, asks this question: "What is the Medical Profession doing
for Cancer?" and then proceeds to answer it in a pamphlet, kindly forwarded
to the Medical Officer of Health by the Secretary of the Medical Society
of the State of New York.
" One of the most complete answers to this question is contained in
the elaborate work of Wolf, ' Die Lehre von der Krebskrankheit Wiesbaden,'
1907. In this work the history of cancer research is traced in brief
detad from the beginning of legendary medicine down to A.D. 1900. In it
one finds that the problem of cancer has occupied continuously a prominent
place in the medicine of all civilized countries. In it one finds all possible
theories as to the cause and nature of cancer, expressed in terms of contemporaneous
science ; and one finds a painfully complete account of the
natural history of cancer. In these pages one fact is perhaps most
prominent, viz., that many of the greatest minds in medicine have in
every age directed their attention to this subject, and that in recent times,
since the introduction of the microscope, great progress has been made in
the knowledge of the cancer process, through the labours of Virchow,
Lebert, Waldeyer, His, Remak, Cohnheim and many others. Another
fact stands prominent in this history, that, with the great advances in the
knowledge of the cancer process, the power of the physician to control
cancer has made practically no essential progress. To-day, as in the
Middle Ages, early and complete removal by the knife is the weapon of
defence against this disease.
"In general, the results of the surgical treatment of cancer have
been unsatisfactory. In a few types of the disease very early and wide
removal of the tumor may effect a cure, yet only a small percentage of
cancers can be thus attacked, and in the great majority of cases either the
growth is inoperable when first discovered, or operation is promptly
followed by return of the disease. Moreover, the persons who recover
after operation are often left physically deformed and usually in mental
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