“Pitiful, and typical. Mrs. Westerly, if she dies, is a type of suicide, the suicide of fear and ignorance. Two years’ waiting! And every day subtracting from her chance. That’s the curse of cancer; that people won’t understand the vital necessity of promptness.”
“But is it true that any lump in a woman’s breast is cancer?” asked Mrs. Sharpless.
“No; it’s a lie; a damnable lie, circulated by that quack to scare foolish women into his toils. Most of such lumps are non-malignant growths. This is true, though: that any lump in a woman’s breast is suspicious. It may be cancer; or it may develop into cancer. The only course is to find out.”
“How?”
‘“With the knife.”
“Isn’t that rather a severe method for a symptom that may not mean anything?”
“Not too severe, considering the danger. Whatever the lump may be, it has no business there in the breast, any more than a bullet has. If it is only a small benign tumor, the process of taking it out is very simple, and there is nothing further to do. While the patient is still under the anaesthetic, a microscopical examination of the tissue, which can be made in a few minutes in a well-equipped hospital, will determine whether the growth is malignant. If so, the whole breast is taken off, and the patient, in all probability, saved. If not, sew up the wound, and the subject is none the worse. Much the better, in fact, for the most innocent growth may develop cancer by irritation. Thirty per cent, or more, of breast cancers develop in this way.”
“But irritation alone won’t cause cancer, will it?” asked Mrs. Clyde, her restlessly inquiring mind reaching back, as was typical of her mental processes, toward first causes.
“No. There must be something else. What that something is, we don’t know. But we are pretty certain that it doesn’t develop unless there is irritation of some kind.”
“Isn’t cancer a germ disease?”