[Report 1925] / Medical Officer of Health, Surrey County Council.

  • Surrey (England). County Council.
Date:
1925
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1925] / Medical Officer of Health, Surrey County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    16/186 (page 14)
    was 162; and tlie death-rate was 0'21 per -decrease of 0*04 as compared with ]ast year ing rate in previous years was: — During five years, 1900-1904 During* five years, During’ five years. During five 1905-1909 1910-1914 1915-1919 1920-1924 years, During’ five years, The rates in the separate districts those in previous years in YITIa. 1,000 civilians, a The correspoil d- T09 per O'84 per 0'70 0'30 per per per 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000 are shown in table VIII. : Heart Disease, Respiratory Diseases, Tuberculous Diseases, and Cancer. The death-rates from these causes during 1925 are given in table IX.; those for previous years in fables IXa. and IXn. Cancer. During the year under review, if indeed anything beyond the increasing incidence of cancer were necessary to bring the subject of that disease into prominence, perhaps it was the work of Gye and Barnard in this country. These workers, it will be recalled, by exhaustive experimental research, involving the use of specially devised optical apparatus, claimed to have discovered a factor in cancer •causation, in the shape of a. filter-passing virus; thus was restored to favour the old bacterial idea of malignant disease. Gye and Barnard however would appear to conclude that some iiinknown additional factor, acting in a complementary role, is necessary, in order that the virus may accomplish its grim work. It might almost seem that the determination of cancer may prove to be a matter of “ seed ” and soil 5' ; in this connection, it is tempting to draw a speculative analogy between cancer and a disease like tuberculosis. Such an analogy, if permissible, would rather suggest a certain ubiquity of the cancer virus, and indicate as the other factor in cancer production, a suitable “ soil, ' in the form of some abnormality of body-cells conferred possibly, inter alia, by hereditary or developmental tissue defect or by the more •obvious agency of chronic irritation. Cancer research goes