I hope I have not wearied you too much with these homely details, but I assure you, gentlemen, that they are not in vain, and I only wish I could go over these and other matters yet more minutely. My experience with cancer for years has taught me well its seriousness, which I have no desire to minimize. Its dietary and medicinal treatment is no small matter to undertake, and should never be lightly entered upon. When the diagnosis of cancer has been definitely made by one or more medical men or surgeons competent to do so, the patient unfortunately is fully imbued with the very serious character of the malady, and most of them know well of the very slim chances of a permanent cure offered by surgery.
Few know, however, of the hope of a cure which can be extended to them by dietary and medical means, if they are perfectly faithful for an indefinite length of time, and if the case receives adequate and proper medical attention. It is for those of you who have heard these and the former lectures, and have seen the cases, to act with confidence and assurance, and give the utmost diligence and attention to details in order to obtain similar results; for I assure you, gentlemen, that thereby you can secure a success in cancer which is many times that following the practise of surgery, judging from the distressing and steadily rising mortality records up to the present time.
Do not be discouraged with apparent want of success at first, especially when you are treating inoperable or recurrent cases—for those are always depressing. But with more recent cases, such as I have reported in the former lectures and will mention in my next lecture, you may be pretty sure that if every feature of treatment is perfectly carried out you will attain a measure of success which is very gratifying.
LECTURE VI
RESULTS: PERSONAL CASES
Two years have elapsed since I said to you in the last lecture of the former course, “The test of everything lies in the results obtained. Theories, discussions and arguments are all unavailing unless results show their truth.” I can now repeat the same phrases after two years’ further observation and experience. And I can also speak much more strongly than I did at that time, not only after testing the matters then presented further, in private and hospital practise, but also after an amount of study of literature which I should hardly have thought possible some years ago.
First I want to recall to you the report of the interesting and remarkable case which was made at our last lecture by Dr. C., one of your number, who promised that if possible the patient would be presented at a later lecture. This was in the person of a lady, now about fifty, seen nearly ten years ago, who presented a great mass of disease in the lower abdomen. On consultation it was decided to attempt an operation, which was performed by Dr. ——, a well known surgeon. On opening the abdomen there was found an amount of malignant tissue, involving many organs to such a degree that it was decided that no removal was possible, and the wound was closed, after securing a section for microscopic study. This was examined by Dr. H., a well known pathologist, and found to be sarcoma.
About that time, nine or ten years ago, I had briefly spoken in one of my lectures about the value of an absolutely vegetarian diet and medical treatment in cancer, and Dr. C., thinking, as he told us, that it might possibly be of advantage to her, in prolonging life or perhaps making it more comfortable, placed her upon it. He has followed the case up to the present time, and stated to us that there was now no evidence of the disease, the abdomen being normal under every examination possible. Surely one such case should be sufficient to direct serious attention to a plan of treatment capable of securing such a result in a patient who is now living in comfort, nine years and more after the surgical removal of the tumor was found to be impossible, and who would otherwise have been dead long ago.
In my former lectures I detailed eight cases of undoubted breast cancer, verified by surgeons, some of them well known, in which the results obtained by the methods I have been presenting were most gratifying, and I need but refer you to the account of them given in my book in which the lectures were published.
You will perhaps remember that the first two cases had been followed up for sixteen years and had remained well, without operation; the next two cases, curiously enough, had each been observed for over nine years, and as they are still under my medical care for various complaints I can add two years more, making over eleven years that they have remained well, without operation.
In those lectures I stated that I had recorded on my books in private practise a total of 744 patients with Epithelioma, Carcinoma, and Sarcoma. I now find recorded in private and hospital practise a total of 196 cases of carcinoma, 36 of sarcoma, and 685 of epithelioma, a total of 917 cases of malignant disease. There are also records of some dozens of cases of adenoma, cysts and chronic mastitis, etc., of the breast, besides fibroma, lipoma, angioma, papilloma, etc., generally benign in character, in various locations, all of which are, of course, excluded from our study.