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
We see, then, that to understand and rightly treat the systemic
condition belonging to cancer, which is indeed its basic factor, one
needs to take a very broad view of the complex processes in the human
system which pertain to metabolism and nutrition. This is indeed quite a
different proposition from the very simple surgical view which regards
the tumor as a local matter, of absolutely unknown origin, which only
needs the knife to end its career. Deranged, disturbed, perverted
nutrition is then the bottom fact of all erroneous growth, whether it be
obesity or a benign or malignant tumor.
Now it must be acknowledged that we are yet in the dark regarding the
exact or precise blood changes which precede and accompany cancer; but
in our last and also in previous lectures we saw that the blood did
exhibit changes which were evidently connected with the production and
continuance of the disease. Until all these matters which have been
referred to have been accurately determined by laboratory work and
investigation we are forced, as in time past, and as is still the case
also in regard to many diseases at the present time, to rest our
judgment and treatment on clinical experience, joined with deductive
observation, based on such knowledge as we have. And this we have
endeavored to do in these and former lectures.
Coming down, then, to the actual and practical facts relating to the
dietary and medical treatment of cancer, we readily see that the real
cancer problem relates to placing the patient in such a normal or ideal
state of life that the function of nutrition is performed in an exactly
proper manner, as nature intended, and from which man has erred through
the manifold temptations incident to our artificial existence, in the
presence of our so-called advanced civilization; for we have seen that
all over the world cancer has steadily increased with the intensity of
human progress.
Since first writing on the subject under discussion medical reviewers
have spoken as though I regarded the eating of meat as the sole cause of
cancer, and enforced absence therefrom as the single element in its cure
and prevention. From what I have just said you can see that this is by
no means true. But that I regard animal protein as a fertile cause of
the derangement of metabolism which leads up to and fosters the growth
of cancer, is most certainly true; this I have developed largely in my
lectures two years ago. While there are many elements which contribute
to the deranged blood stream of cancer, the question of diet is so
preeminently important that we must treat of it very fully. For, as in
gout the continuance of an indulgence in Port and Madeira wine in excess
would invalidate any attempt to cure the trouble permanently, so in
cancer an excess of animal, or even a large amount of vegetable protein,
militates against any effort to remove the disease medically; this is
probably true also of coffee and alcohol.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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