CANCER AND MEAT EATING
That nothing could seem more definite than the connection between cancer and the practice of eating inferior meat, is the conclusion reached by Dr. G. Cook Adams, who made a series of statistical studies under the direction of the Chicago Board of Health. “There cannot be the slightest doubt,” says this expert, “that the great increase in cancer among the foreign born of Chicago over the prevalence of that disease in their native countries, is due to the increased consumption of animal foods, particularly those derived from diseased animals.” This conclusion substantiates the original deductions made by Dr. Adams from investigations carried on over a number of years in Australia and London.
Dr. Woods Hutchinson stated that the rise of any nation in civilization is invariably accompanied by an increased abundance in food supply; and the rise of these foreign born in Chicago in civilization substantiates Dr. Woods Hutchinson’s views. Receiving more wages than in their native homes, where their diet was simple, they are enabled to indulge in a meat diet denied them in Europe. The result is an increase in the death rate from cancer between the years 1856 and 1866 of 680%, while from 1866 to 1905 the increase was 232%.
In 1905 cancer was responsible for one in every twenty-three deaths, while in 1906 one death in every 21.8 was due to this horrible disease. The Italians and the Chinese were the only two of all the races represented in Chicago that do not show a far greater death rate from cancer than in their own homes. The Italians keep up the use of macaroni and spaghetti, while the Chinese adhere to their native diet of rice. The nations showing the higher mortality consume large quantities of canned, preserved, dried and pickled meats, sausages, etc. It was also shown that the bulk of the fresh meat prepared at the plant of a slaughtering company was stock condemned by official inspectors, and this was the meat eaten by the poor.