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CANCER

Categories: Constitutional Diseases

(In the following article on cancer we quote in part from
material issued by the Public Health Department of the State of Michigan).





Cancer is curable if it be operated upon in its early stages. If it be

left to grow and develop, cancer is always fatal. It may be partially

removed when in an advanced stage, and relief may be had for some time

after operation; but beyond the early stage, cancer cannot at present
be

permanently removed, nor permanently cured. Permanent cure of a cancer is

possible if the afflicted person obtains an early diagnosis and receives

early attention from a skilled surgeon. The only permanent cure for cancer

known at the present time is early surgical operation.



Have Operations Failed to Cure?--Very few persons die from operations

performed by skilled surgeons for the removal of cancer. Where cancer

operation is done by experienced surgeons the fatality in America for the

past fourteen years is less than one case out of a hundred, or in other

words ninety-nine persons out of a hundred survive operation for cancer.

Many persons have died from the return of the cancerous growth even after

operation by a skilled surgeon, and this fact has led many persons to

believe that operation for cancer is, therefore, unsuccessful, that it

does not cure. This is not the fact. It is true that cancer often returns

after operation, and that this method does not always effect a permanent

cure; but it is not true that operations are, therefore, useless. The

reason that operations do not remove cancers permanently in a great number

of cases is that such cases do not submit to operation soon enough. The

majority of persons suffering from cancer seek surgical aid too late. If a

house is on fire and one refuses to turn in an alarm until the fire has

spread from cellar to garret, neither blame nor disparagement must be

placed upon the fire department if it failed to save the burning house. So

with cancer; if the public refuses or neglects to operate for cancer at

the time when it can be eradicated, the public cannot censure or belittle

surgery. A cancer is like a green and ripe thistle. Pull up the green

thistle and you have gotten rid of it. But if you wait until the thistle

is ripe, and the winds have blown away the seeds, there is no use of

pulling up that thistle. Early operations are successful. Late ones are

not.



No reliable surgeon claims to save his patient or cure him of cancer if

the disease be in an advanced stage. But experienced surgeons do recognize

the fact that cancer in its early stage can be permanently removed and a

permanent cure can be effected by surgical operation. No other means of

permanent cure are known.






Caustic pastes applied to cancerous growths or sera, are sometimes

successful in obliterating the cancer for a time; but they are not

reliable for effecting enduring cures, and usually are merely palliative,

The fact that a cancer does not return for three years after removal is

not sure proof that it will not return; the return of a cancerous growth

depends upon its state of development and other conditions at the time of

removal from the cancer. In Johns Hopkins' Hospital forty-seven per cent

of all patients with cancers of the breast operated upon remained well for

three years or more, and seventy-five per cent of this forty-seven per

cent were cured, being in the most favorable condition for cure at the

time of the operation. But where conditions are not favorable at the time

of the operation, many patients have a return of the cancer even after the

three years of apparent cure have elapsed.



What is Cancer?--A cancer is a growth of cancerous cells in a network of

connective tissue. The cause of cancer is not known. It has not been

proved to be communicable and the majority of investigators of this

subject believe that it is not caused by a germ. Nor is it thought to be

inherited. Out of 8,000 cases of cancer at Middlesex Hospital, London, no

evidence of heredity was found. Until the cause of cancer is known, it

cannot be prevented. The only safeguard lies in an early diagnosis of the

condition and an immediate operation. Eminent investigators are carrying

on extensive research and thousands of dollars are being spent annually to

ascertain, if possible, what is the cause of this dread disease, and it is

confidently believed that final success will crown this labor.



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