CANCER OF THE STOMACH

Categories: Constitutional Diseases

The beginning of cancer of the stomach is very
difficult to recognize and it is far safer and wiser, upon the appearance

of the first suspicious symptom, to seek the aid of some physician skilled

in cancer diagnosis than to ignore and neglect these early warnings of the

disease. Although cancer of the stomach may occur in younger persons, it

is usually met with in persons after forty years of age. Therefore, any

person at thi age who suffers from continuous indigestion or

characterized by retention and prolonged fermentation of food in the

stomach, should at once consult a competent physician. In the early stages

of the cancer of the stomach the patient loses weight, but in the later

stages there is more or less pain.



Whenever a physician finds that a patient has a pappy, insipid taste with

a furred, pale, rarely dry and red tongue, and is suffering from

continuous, dull sensations or pain in the region of the stomach,

periodically increasing to paroxysms, often induced by pressure or

increased by it, together with a sensation of weight, drawing pains of

varying character, and frequent pain in the shoulder, loss of appetite,

frequent belching of fetid gas from the stomach, severe and frequent

vomiting, often periodical, often occurring before partaking of a meal but

more often afterwards with slight indigestion, but vomitus being more or

less watery and containing mucus and blood, usually decomposed and

recurring frequently, together with constipation of the bowels, the skin

being sallow, yellowish, dry and flaccid, and losing weight and strength,

he should suspect cancer of the stomach and where possible advise an

immediate surgical operation for the removal of the cancer.