Review of recent cancer research / by E.F. Bashford.

  • Bashford, E. F. (Ernest Francis), 1873-
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Review of recent cancer research / by E.F. Bashford. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    Thus comparative investigations have given a new and enhanced importance to the forms of chronic irritation—kipus-scar, burn- scar, bilharzia, etc.—long known, or new, hke the X-rays. Like the older forms of irritations these newer, or hitherto neglected forms of irritation, have nothing in common, unless it be argued they permit the entrance of a ubiquitous cancer parasite. In considering the importance of irritation in Europe and America again, it is necessary to consider the different parts of the body separately. In the case of the different parts of the intestinal canal, the curves of relative frequency cross at the stomach in both sexes; above the stomach cancer is more common in the male, below it more common in the female, both in the national statistics and in hospital statistics of England. This circumstance may not be without relation to the different habits of the two sexes, the male irritating the upper half of the canal by smoking, alcohol, gulping his food, etc., more than the female, who is more prone to the chronic irritation of constipation. Moreover, the unwillingness or inability of women to nurse chil- dren may not be unconnected with the increase in the number of deaths recorded from cancer of the breast. The increase for cancer of the tongue in men and the stomach and intestines in both sexes, therefore, should, perhaps, not be dismissed as due merely to improved diagnosis and certification of the causes of death. The importance of considering different sites apart can also be argued on a comparative basis. In surveying the incidence of cancer in the vertebrate kingdom, one has been struck by the fact that certain forms of cancer appear to preponderate in differ- ent classes. It is. of course, obvious that the incidence of cancer in re])rcsentati\es of the diff'erent zoological classes must differ, since, c. c/., structures peculiar to mammals are absent in other vertel)rates. Ihit if we consider the mammalia themselves, it api)ears probal)lc that some species are very liable to forms of cancer from which others, even nearly allied, are relatively or altogether exempt, as illustrated, r. </., by the \'ariations in the fre([uencv with which cancer of tlic uterus or maniina (u-curs. Cancer of the breast, so common in tlie human female, is also