Effort in the path of right living—if steadily pursued—and the intelligent utilization of what Science and Art and Experience have to teach, will undoubtedly make for healthier and longer lived communities, and will lessen, for each individual, the probability of dying otherwise than in the fashion thought of by the doctor when he ascribes death to “old age”. The problem we are considering becomes indeed swallowed up by a still greater one; but, those who profit by what Mr Wright has had to say about Cancer, will profit in respect of this greater problem as well. Therein, so it seems, lies its greatest value.
F. G. CROOKSHANK
London, 1925
THE CONQUEST OF CANCER
The cure of cancer is now ceasing to become a purely medical problem, to be solved by biologists, pathologists and surgeons, and is becoming a problem in psychology, and education, to be solved by publicists, schoolmasters, and perhaps, when enough people are alive to the facts of the situation, by legislators and statesmen.
This may sound a bold thing to say, but I hope to be able to bring forward evidence proving that it is at present possible to cure seventy-five per cent. of cancer cases with a mortality of under five per cent.
Possibly the response to this essay will be that of one of the most enlightened persons of my acquaintance who, on seeing my title, said, “Of course this is perfectly absurd”, but it was a favourite saying of Dr Maguire, a great American surgeon of the nineteenth century, that the most useful thing one man can do for his fellows is to see a thing clearly, and to say it plainly.
Here is a plain statement, susceptible of the fullest proof. Out of every hundred people in our community, ten will in all probability die of cancer; and, of those ten, seven or eight could be cured, or their disease prevented with the present methods at our disposal. All that is required is an intelligent facing of the facts concerning this disease, and efficient medical attention.
The average annual deaths during the last eleven years in the United Kingdom were 466,000,—nearly half a million people. Of these, 43,000 were due to cancer; 19,000 males and 24,000 females. Moreover, although taken altogether ten per cent. of the population die of cancer, a greater proportion of adults so die. I say again that a large proportion of these cases is either preventable or curable.