4. Statistics from many countries show that increase in the consumption of meat, coffee, and alcoholic beverages, appears to be coincident with a very great and proportionately greater augmentation of the mortality from cancer.
5. Clinical observation has time and again shown the effect of specific nerve strain and shock in the development of cancer; and there seems to be little question but that the enormous nerve strain of modern life is an element of importance in this direction, both through metabolic disturbance and by direct action on living cells.
6. At present no clear demonstration is possible of the direct method by which errors of metabolism effect the changes in cells to which we give the name malignant, any more than we know how other alterations on the body are produced; such as arterial degeneration, bone changes, obesity, etc., which are recognized as due to metabolic derangement.
7. The results which have been observed in connection with the starvation of cancer, by ligature of vessels, illustrate the relation of the blood supply to growing cancer.
8. Finally, the repeated observation and report of the spontaneous disappearance of cancer, by careful and competent medical men, shows that conditions of the system may arise which are antagonistic to malignant growth, even when it has begun to take place; just as there are other conditions of the system which favor the aberrant action of previously normal cells, resulting in cancer.
The medical aspects of cancer thus loom large, and appear in quite a different light from that in which they have been commonly viewed. We now begin to see some of the reasons why cancer is not primarily a surgical disease, and some of the lines along which observation and investigation should proceed; namely, biochemistry, secretory and excretory derangements, metabolic disturbances, diet, etc., etc. The subject is too new a one to afford a great amount of corroborative proof at present, other than the long personal experience of the writer and others, who have seen tumors disappear under means other than surgical, X-ray, and radium. More clinical and laboratory investigations of human beings are needed, and not simply microscopic studies and experiments on animals, valuable as these have been in the advancement of medical science in connection with other diseases.
We will now consider briefly some of the practical points in regard to the successful treatment of cancer by means other than the knife. I will not take time to review or even to mention the various methods and means which have been proposed and advocated for the cure of cancer, only to end in disappointment for the reason that they did not reach the basic cause of the complaint. The very multiplicity of the suggestions proves their futility.
The line of thought and practise to which I would devote your special attention is not entirely new, but has been hinted at by many careful observers during the past hundred years or more, though it has never before been fully developed or strongly urged. But the experiences of over forty years, together with much study, has so convinced me of the correctness of the principles and practise which I advocate that I cannot too strongly urge you to consider them fully and without bias, and to put them to a satisfactory test, although I quite realize that they are contrary to the generally accepted views of the profession and laity.
The fundamental principle of my thesis lies in the fact that with the so-called advance of modern civilization, certain diseases, for the last fifteen years at least, have showed a steadily increasing mortality. The deaths in the United States from apoplexy, nephritis, and heart disease have steadily increased over ten, fifteen, and twenty per cent respectively, and those from cancer 28.7 per cent. We all realize that the results in the three former diseased conditions are from errors in the mode of life, including eating and drinking, and indolence, and careful study shows that cancer has the same origin. On the other hand, as already stated, the deaths from tuberculosis have steadily declined 27.8 per cent under rational medical treatment, directed mainly along the lines of correct nutrition: the death rate of tuberculosis and cancer have thus approached each other 56.5 per cent, and at this rate in fifteen years more the mortality from cancer will exceed that from tuberculosis!
Careful and prolonged studies of cancer patients, both in the earlier and later stages of the disease, as I have recorded elsewhere,[[6]] show that there are always departures from normal metabolism, as is shown by the condition of the blood, and in the excretion from the bowels, kidneys, and skin, and in the salivary and hepatic secretions, and possibly in those of the ductless glands. Time does not permit here of elaborating this subject, which has been done elsewhere, but it is evident that some combination of internal systemic disorders must be recognized as the basic cause of the complaint, although at the present time it is difficult to point to a single causative element, if, indeed, it will ever be discovered.