The remedy which I have largely relied on in these cases for many years is acetate of potassa, and it is interesting to note that Ross[[7]] of London claims that a cause of cancer is found in a disturbance in the mineral contents of the blood, and that there is a lack of potassa, and he gives as high as 90 grains of phosphate and carbonate of potassa in the day, with excellent results. I commonly give the acetate in combination with other remedies, thus ℞ Potass. acetatis ℥i, Tinct. Nuc. Vom. ℨiv, Ext. Cascara fld. ℨi-ℨiv, Extr. Rumicis radicis fld. ad ℥iv, M. Teaspoonful in water ½ hour before eating.

But in the long treatment necessary for these cases before the malignant growth has quite disappeared, and possibly for a good while afterward, there may be many remedies used with advantage to secure and maintain that healthy metabolism requisite to overcome the cancerous habit. Iron and arsenic, phosphates and strychnin, and even cod liver oil and many reconstructive remedies and measures may bear their share in overcoming this dire disease. Thyroid extract sometimes assists materially in removing the malgrowth, but must be given with caution, and in connection with other proper remedies; for sometimes it will promote catabolism and disintegrate the diseased tissue faster than the emunctories can remove the effete products, and these may poison the system.

It has been difficult in a single address to present such a vast subject, which is more or less new to many, in a clear and concise form, and I fear that I have trespassed too greatly on your patience, and have yet only imperfectly made matters clear. But I shall be satisfied if I have excited your interest sufficiently to cause you to investigate the medical aspects of cancer, in which lies the real problem of its prevention and cure. Surgery has been tried faithfully by many brilliant and honest men, some of whom now and then acknowledge the failure of the knife to arrest the steadily increasing mortality from the disease, which is now about 90 per cent of all those once attacked.

But I fully realize that there is danger in my strenuous advocacy of other lines of treatment, lest these should not be fully and perfectly carried out, with such intelligence, patience, and persistence, on the part of the physician and patient as is requisite to accomplish the end desired. For I must say that it is extremely tedious and tiresome to care minutely for these patients, who should be seen at least weekly, and even for months or years, with careful and accurate records, innumerable urinary and blood analyses, etc., etc.

On the other hand, however, we have the alternatives of leaving the patient to suffer and die, or to submit to a surgical operation with the expectation of recurrence in a considerable proportion of cases, attended often with greater suffering and final death.

My experience with the disease for forty years or more in private practise, and for the last few years in my medical clinic for cancer, in the New York Skin and Cancer Hospital, and in the wards of the hospital, have so fully convinced me of the correctness of the views I have stated here and elsewhere that I cannot too strongly beg you to give them due consideration, and not simply to class them with the various passing claims and suggestions regarding cancer, which have so often proved illusory. For along the lines which I have presented lies the real cancer problem, as I can demonstrate by many cases more or less similar to those detailed in my little book.

INDEX

[1]. “Cancer, Its Cause and Treatment,” Hoeber, 1915.