What is Known about Cancer ?
THIS semi-official publication is a suggestive model for corre- sponding books on other widespread diseases about which con- siderable and harmful confusion exists in the public mind. Without bias, and in the simplest appropriate language, we are here given a concise statement of all that can legitimately be regarded as established about the most dreaded of common diseases. There is no undue playing down to the lazy and casual reader ; but, at the same time, there is nothing in this book that cannot, with a little attention and mental effort, be understood by any person of average intelligence and average education.
After a brief account of the relevant minute anatomy of the human body, the incidence of cancer is considered both gene- ally, and in relation to such particulars as occupation, age, locality, diet, and habits of life. The exposition should have a sobering effect on those who, from very limited observation and experience, are prone to assume easy explanations and correspondingly simple methods of avoidance. Beyond the fact that certain specific forms of long continued irritation are, • in certain individuals, undoubted provocants, we cannot with confidence assign to any one circumstance or habit, or set of circumstances or habits, causative significance. There seems to be some reason for the assumption that civilized man is more liable to cancer than are the members of primitive races Jiving a harder and less sophisticated life ; but, when we come to search for the particular factor responsible, we are baffled. The members of religious corporations, living on the strictest vegetarian diet, seem to enjoy no greater measure of humanity than do their otnnivorous fellow-countrymen ; and the disease pays little regard to class and social conditions. In this small book, useful advice is given as to the signs and symPteets which, in the individual, may well give rise to a suspicion of early cancer ; and the available methods of treatment are impartially discussed. Whilst the possibilities of radium are fully recognized, and its peculiar suitability, in cancer 01 certain parts of the body is explained, the experienced writers of this handbook *confirm what may be Called the orthod05 opinion that the surgeon's knife is, for the present, the 'nest serviceable weapon at our disposal in combating the great majority of tlipe enigmatic perversions of human ,ph3rsi010g.
Heutay ROBERTS.
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