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SOCIAL CONDITIONS AND GENERAL PROVISION OF
HEALTH SERVICES
THE WASTAGE OF HUMAN LIFE
What are the chief causes of death to-day?
Years ago diphtheria and smallpox would have been rated high
but, to-day, their mention holds little terror for the public generally,
although in the section dealing with infectious diseases I shall be recording
a word of warning about them.
Cancer
If we examine the causes of death for 1950, we find that 129 Barking
people died from cancer. Deaths from this disease form one-fifth of the
total deaths recorded annually in Barking and in the County generally.
Cancer is one of the most dreadful of diseases and I should like to
explain simply what it is and to show how mere figures about it can be
misleading.
The tissues of the body are made up of cells in the same way as a
building is made of bricks, slates and other things. Tissue like a building
requires constant repair and renovation and normally the cells forming
the tissue multiply just sufficient to effect this repair and renovation.
Cells which are cancerous, however, just grow and multiply without any
regard to the requirements of the body as a whole. They demand feeding
even though this means that the rest of the body is famished and the
tumour which is formed insists on growing and growing even though it is
pressing on some vital part of the body. These cells are parasitic so far as
the ordinary cells of the body are concerned.
During the year 1950, 22 people in Barking died from cancer of the
lungs. Some of these cases were cancer of the lung tissue proper, and
some of these cases cancer in the air-ways of the lungs. Twenty years
ago when the population of Barking was only about 40,000 instead of
80,000 we had four cases recorded.
A statistician would jump to the conclusion that cancer of the lungs
was much more than it used to be, but I would ask you to pause, because
in or about the year 1928 I was called out to examine a case of query
tuberculosis and I came to the conclusion it was cancer of the lung.
Quite frankly, I felt myself a bit of a clever doctor, because it had been
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