Cancer and its treatment : being the Bradshaw Lecture delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons of England on December 1, 1904.

  • Mayo Robson, A. W., 1853-1933.
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Cancer and its treatment : being the Bradshaw Lecture delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons of England on December 1, 1904. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    that the association is more frequent than is generally supposed. From these observations it seems highly probable that cancer is both contagious and inoculable among human beings, as it undoubtedly is among the lower animals. These facts are so suggestive that, although it may not be necessary to advise segregation of cancer patients, it would seem most desirable that all dressings taken from cancer patients should be burnt; that linen soiled by cancerous sores should be destroyed or disin- fected by boiling; that contact with cancerous ulcers, whether of the lip, tongue, breast, uterus, or other parts, should be avoided ; and that common use of beds and utensils with cancerous patients should not occur. The Treatment of Cancer. The very fact that cancer is often only submitted to the surgeon when it has either ceased to be a local disease, or, if still local, when it has invaded the tissues to so large an extent that its complete removal is difficult or impossible, has not only misled the public, but has even biassed many members of our profession as to the true facts of what surgery can do for this fatal disease. ‘Too late’ has yet to be said in one-half or three-fourths of the cancer cases when seen by the operating surgeon. Many even intelligent persons, having abandoned all hope of permanent benefit from surgical treatment, throw themselves into the arms of so-called cancer specialists, who fatten on the credulity and ignorance of their victims, and only when all hope of benefit by recognised methods has passed are they allowed to escape from their clutches. The methods of treatment, psychical, physical, medi- cinal, photo-therapeutic, electrical, etc., are almost too many to mention, certainly too many to describe, in a