Cancer: Its Cause and Treatment, Volume 2 (of 2)Bulkley, Lucius Duncan
Science
Cancer: Its Cause and Treatment, Volume 2 (of 2)
Bulkley, Lucius Duncan
Cancer
Do not misunderstand me and think that I claim that each and every case
of cancer, in any stage, can be cured. Alas, my sad experience with the
many deaths from recurrent and inoperable cancer, especially in the New
York Skin and Cancer Hospital, has taught me the contrary, and I have
often been appalled at the impotence of human endeavor; although even
these patients have often been grateful for the amount of benefit and
relief afforded by proper measures, and in my former lectures I reported
to you several such cases. But I do assert that the total percentage of
cures in reasonable cases is far, far greater under the line of
treatment I am presenting to you than under that most commonly employed.
LECTURE IV
INOPERABLE AND RECURRENT CANCER; METASTASIS; THE BLOOD IN CANCER
We saw in our last lecture that surgery had failed to check the rising
mortality of cancer, and that during the year 1915, in the United States
Registration Area, the death rate had augmented from 79.4 to 81.1, or an
increase of 1.7 persons in every 100,000 living; this was a greater
increase than the average rise in the death rate for the preceding five
years which was only 1.2 points. This, moreover, occurred during a still
active period of laboratory research, with wide publicity as to cancer
control, by education as to the benefit of early operation, and with
active and skilful surgery.
We saw that fully 50 per cent of all cases of cancer were quite
inoperable when first seen by competent surgeons, while the average end
result, or cure, in the cases operated on, for all kinds together, good
and bad, slight and severe, did not total as much as 25 per cent; this
makes but 12.5 of the entire number who applied for surgical relief. We
quite naturally asked, therefore, if some form of medical treatment,
including diet and hygiene, could not afford a better prospect of
arresting this fearful mortality. It is especially in regard to the
large number of inoperable and recurrent cases, comprising over 60 per
cent of the whole, that this inquiry is particularly important. We will
briefly consider these latter sad conditions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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