Cancer: Its Cause and Treatment, Volume 2 (of 2)

by Lucius Duncan Bulkley

But a broad view of metabolism and nutrition recognizes that all cell changes, whether good or bad, depend on the character and composition of the blood furnished to the tissues, although little definite may be known concerning it. Thus, no one has demonstrated the single causative change in the blood in arteriosclerosis, gout, rickets, scorbutus, etc., but no one questions that it exists, and we direct our therapeutic measures accordingly, largely from experience.

The same is true in cancer. Most careful and prolonged study of the patient in every respect has shown a certain uniformity in regard to particular deviations from health, the correction of which has been followed by a complete disappearance of tumors classed as malignant, so that the connection must seem obvious to an unprejudiced mind. And yet it cannot be claimed that the exact, single cause of the cancerous growth has been demonstrated, and from the nature and character of the systemic disorders found, it is evident that there can never be any single remedy which can be rightly claimed as a cure for cancer.

But that cancer can be cured by medical means and without the knife is absolutely certain, as the experience of many testify, and as the writer has observed in so many cases during the past 30 and more years. Many of the instances in the hands of others have occurred unexpectedly, and without definite or careful study and record of the measures employed. But in some way the condition of the blood and system has become altered so that there has occurred a retrogressive process which resulted in the absorption of the tumor. I may say that this was the case in regard to the earlier patients in my own practise, when I observed that tumors of the breast, which had been diagnosed as cancer by surgeons, disappeared under dietetic and other measures given for some skin affection; later observation and study have crystallized my views and confirmed my methods of procedure, which I hope to make plain, as briefly as possible, lack of time to explain everything must make me a little dogmatic.

An absolutely vegetarian diet is the first requisite in the treatment and prophylaxis of cancer, for, as mentioned, this has been found experimentally to inhibit, often to a remarkable degree, the production of artificially produced cancer in rats and mice, and experience throughout the world has shown cancer to be extremely rare in vegetarians. This diet, which should be maintained indefinitely, must be rigorous and absolutely vegetarian, excluding animal protein, even eggs and milk; butter is the only article allowed which does not grow, and of this one quarter of a pound is to be taken daily, by a person weighing 150 pounds. Cereals are to be freely employed, eaten slowly, with a fork, and with butter, and not with milk and sugar, though the latter may be used moderately, where it seems necessary and where it perfectly agrees with the patient.

Perfect mastication, with thorough insalivation, is very essential, and I insist on at least half an hour being taken for even the lightest meal. Coffee, chocolate, and cocoa are excluded from the diet, only weak tea being allowed, with some postum or other artificial substitute for coffee.

Alcohol in each and every form is absolutely excluded, as it always has a very harmful effect on cancer. Sufficient water, not iced, should be taken to answer to the needs of the system, and I commonly give half a pint with each meal, and half a pint, hot, one hour before both breakfast and the evening meal.

Cancer being a disease of advancing civilization, with all its temptations and errors in living, it is essential that the cancer subject lead a very simple and healthy life, with regular hours of eating and sleeping, with a reasonable amount of exercise, and the avoidance of everything which could disturb normal metabolism.

There is, of course, no single medicine which can cure cancer, but proper medication plays a very important part in overcoming the disease and should never be neglected or interrupted in any case; indeed, one suffering from or threatened with cancer should be under the most careful medical guidance indefinitely, and this is especially true after the surgical removal of the tumor, or local manifestation of the morbid process, as Abernethy so strongly asserted, nearly a hundred years ago.

Medical treatment lies mainly along the lines of elimination, which is always found to be faulty, both by the bowels and kidneys. My records of large numbers of private patients show that there is imperfect intestinal secretion, both in the very early stages and late in cancer, even before morphin is taken. Therefore I have long come to look upon intestinal auto-intoxication as a prime factor of causation, and lately Sir Arbuthnot Lane has spoken of cancer as a terminal result of intestinal stasis. This constipation, however, is not to be met with occasional purgatives, but by measures which will secure a good normal evacuation once or oftener daily. My principal reliance for this is cascara, in combination with other remedies, although I also very often give once a week, on alternate days, two good laxatives of blue mass, colocynth, and ipecac. Mineral waters, Russian oil, etc., are not desirable, and enemata are resorted to only in emergencies.

The kidney secretion in early and late cancer is always faulty. This does not refer to albumen and casts, or sugar, which are searched for but seldom found. But very careful and repeated volumetric analyses of its many normal ingredients reveal errors in its composition which are of significance and which serve as a guide in therapy. There is always a faulty nitrogenous partition, and in that of sulphur; indican is commonly in excess, often very greatly so, and the chlorids and phosphates and sulphates deranged. The urinary secretion will constantly be found to be extremely deficient, both as to the actual quantity passed in the 24 hours, and in its total solid contents, which are often hardly one half of that called for by the body weight of the patient; this I have verified by hundreds of analyses. As these errors are corrected by proper treatment there will be a coincident improvement in the vitality of the patient and in the tumor.