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
Dr. Ross had operated much in cancer, but, realizing the inefficiency of
surgery to cure the disease, he wrote very severely in regard to cancer
surgery in the opening chapter of his book. After “ten years of constant
microscopic, clinical and surgical research,” he advanced the hypothesis
that “cancer is due to a want of balance in particular mineral salts of
the body, and that the disturbance of this balance leads to the
disorderly and malignant growth of epithelial cells (epiblastic and
hypoblastic) which is professionally known as Cancer or Carcinoma,” and
that the main disturbance is in regard to the potash balance in the
body. By very careful deductive and inductive reasoning, and by actual
experimentation and practise he shows how this answers and explains more
of the puzzles and intricacies of the cancer problem than any other
hypothesis. In the previous chapter I referred somewhat to his
interesting studies on cell polarity, the red blood cells, and the
probable rôle of mononuclear leukocytes in inducing cancer-genetic
changes in the tissues.
Pardon this rather long reference to Dr. Ross, who was much
misunderstood by his fellow practitioners because of his blunt
expressions and his presentation of a new thesis regarding cancer, which
was not grasped, and, as far as I know, has been neglected by the
profession; his book was published in 1912, and has only rather recently
come under my notice. He died the following year, but at the end of the
book, three months after it was written, he added a note stating that
“all the cases described therein have continued to improve under
treatment, until some of them have practically ceased to be cases of
recognizable cancer.”
It is, therefore, not a little satisfactory to find from a cancer
surgeon such microscopic, biochemical, and clinical explanation and
support for the treatment which I have followed for thirty years and
more, and which I am now presenting for your consideration. Dr. Ross
makes three references which in a measure support the potassium theory
of cancer.
1. “The old physiological adage ‘Potassium is the salt of the tissues,
and sodium the salt of the fluids of the body’ still holds good as an
absolute physiological truth.”
2. “Animal physiology teaches us that the whole range of the animal
creation, from an ameba to man, follows the same law, ‘Potassium is the
salt of the tissue cell.’”
3. “Examination of the botanical world brings us face to face with the
same identical statement ‘Potassium is the salt of the chemical
physiology of the vegetable cell.’”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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