Mobilizing for Cancer
Two well-handled events last
week publicized the medical profession’s decision that to reduce
cancer mortality* the public must be taught to go to a doctor the
instant some physical abnormality appears, and that doctors must be
taught to recognize the early stages of cancer. If cancer is caught at
its initial appearance it can usually be cured by surgery or radium.
At Baltimore, Dr. Joseph Colt Bloodgood, clinical professor of surgery
and director of the Garvan Experimental Laboratory at Johns Hopkins
University,! presided over a three-day conference of medical men.
Twenty-thousand letters had been sent inviting doctors to instruction
in reading X-ray pictures of cancerous bones. Only 300 appeared at
Baltimore, but events proved that the 300 needed Dr. Bloodgood’s
instruction. He had photograph after photograph of cancerous bones and
joints thrown on a screen. The 300 were asked to write down their
diagnoses. At first very few were correct. But as projections
continued scores mounted until at the end most of the doctors agreed in
their picture readings, could return home more confident of making
proper cancer diagnoses.
Dr. Bloodgood repeated the offer which Johns
Hopkins and all the other great cancer clinics have made: if a doctor
is uncertain of an X-ray diagnosis, he may mail the photograph to the
clinic. Experts will report the reading to him and not make a charge
unless the doctor says that his patient can afford to pay.
Dr. Edwin
Charles Ernst, 45, of St. Louis, president of the new Radiological
Research Institute, took the occasion to flay U. S. manufacturers of
X-ray tubes. Bold was his charge: “The larger companies of
unlimited financial resources apparently limit their researches and
developments of improved apparatus or X-ray tubes to those
improvements that promise large profits. One such organization in
this country controls the patent rights to manufacture X-ray tubes
exclusively** and as a result charges prohibitory prices
[$125~$450] for the necessary tubes of the physicians who
must purchase them for X-ray diagnosis and the treatment of cancer.
“At present these tubes are not satisfactory, certainly far
inferior in quality to those made in Europe and much higher in price.
Effective and beneficial research in the unlimited virgin field of
radiology has thus been retarded for many years, perhaps more directly
due to the practice of the company at present enjoying the X-ray tube
monopoly by filing away useful patents which could and should have
been employed by others in the interest of humanity and especially the
treatment of cancer by a more effective X-ray radiation. . . .
“There is no question but that the X-ray tubes can be materially
improved and made more powerful. We now produce X-rays of from 6,000 to
250,000 volts and, if we went to 400,000 volts, we could get
practically radium rays from an X-ray tube. We know results would be
better. But we cannot go that high, for we lack tubes to stand it, and
so far no one has dared to tackle their development because of the
patent monopoly.”
Last week, too, the U. S. Bureau of Standards announced that its
Lauriston S. Taylor had developed an apparatus to standardize the
measurement of the intensity of X-rays, so that a radiologist need no
longer risk burning patients needlessly or dangerously.
At Toronto the Canadian Club provided a radio microphone when its
officers learned that Lord Moynihan, in town for the dedication of the
Banting Medical Institute wished to tell the lay public
about cancer. Said he, with all the power of a great surgeon and the
prestige of a Lord:
“One in every seven of you who are listening to me over the radio and
are more than 35 years old will die of cancer. . . . Cancer is not only
a scourge. It is a dirty fighter. It takes men just at the time when
their lives are of most service to their family circle, in their
professional life or business life, and when their wisdom is of
greatest value to the State. Cancer is cured by surgery. That is to
say, patients live so long that they have time to die of something
else. And they also live so long that they may be sure they are
entirely free from the disease. . . .
“I am not distinguished from any other surgeon in this room, but I can
give my personal experience in my life: I have lost only one case of
cancer of the breast from operation, and it is clear, therefore, that
surgery alone can offer little further help. We are doing the very
limit of what is possible.
“In my judgment, we can go no further along the road of progress in the
command of cancer unless we have the help of the public. We must have
an educational campaign. We must make the public understand what cancer
is, and how best its great dangers can be met. And, in the second
place, we must undertake research.
“Cancer is always primarily a local disease.. It always begins in one
place. It never begins as a blood condition, affecting first one and
then the other. That is the most undeniable truth with regard to
cancer. Secondly, where it is local and accessible to the surgeon, it
is in every single case a curable disease. In the third place, cancer
very rarely attacks a healthy organ. The moral is, you should keep
yourself as fit as you can. . . .”
*150,000 yearly in the U. S., 50,000 in Great Britain, Dr. Bloodgood, 62, Milwaukee lawyer’s son, is son-in-law of the late **General Electric X-Ray Corp., of Chicago, until last February
500,000 in those civilized countries which keep vital statistics.
Manhattan Publisher Henry Holt . Dr.
Bloodgood’s brother is Wheeler Peckham Bloodgood, 58, Milwaukee
insurance lawyer, friend of the Progressive La Follettes .
called Victor X-Ray Corp. This company, largest manufacturer in the U.
S., is a subsidiary of General Electric Co. Chairman is Herbert Scott
Blake; president, Charles F. Samms; consulting engineer. Dr. William
David Coolidge, inventor of the Coolidge X-ray tube. Other U. S. X-ray
equipment firms: Westinghouse Lamp Co., X-ray division; Kelley-Koett
Manufacturing Co. .
Next:Hoosier's Maine*
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