THE CONQUEST OF CANCER [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—I would like to endorse the views expressed by " Crusader " in your issue of the 7th, and of " Medoc " in your issue of the 14th. Cancer is preventable and curable. There are on record hundreds of spontaneous cures of inoperable cancer, and there are hundreds of hommopathic and other cures. The maxim " Cancer is not preventable except by operation," which is learnt by rote by every doctor, is as untrue as the old maxim that consumption is unpreventable and incurable, which mesmerized the medical profession for decades not so very long ago.
As cancer is not " a disease," but a large number of diseases which produce a tumour, the search for a micro-organism and a specific is futile. As " Medoc " correctly states : " In- dividualization is the keynote of successful treatment of cancer and generalizations are fatal to the patients." That lesson is perfectly obvious to all whose mind has not been warped by a few sweeping generalizations made by cancer specialists which have been uncritically endorsed by the medical profession to the great injury of the public. It is high time that open-minded laymen took an interest in cancer and studied the disease from the common-sense point of view, for researchers and surgeons have utterly failed to stern the ever-advancing tide of the disease.—I. am, Sir, &c.,
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