Remarks on advances in the treatment of cancer of the cervix uteri / by Herbert R. Spencer, M.D., consulting obstetric physician to University College Hospital.

  • Spencer, Herbert R. (Herbert Ritchie), 1860-1941
Date:
[1928?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Remarks on advances in the treatment of cancer of the cervix uteri / by Herbert R. Spencer, M.D., consulting obstetric physician to University College Hospital. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Reprinted from the BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL, March 31st, 1923. fUmarks ON ADVANCES IN THE TREATMENT OF CANCER OF THE CERVIX UTERI.* BY HERBERT R. SPENCER, M.D., CONSULTING OBSTETRIC PHYSICIAN TO UNIVERSITY COLLEGE HOSPITAL. It was with some diffidence that I accepted the invitation to open a discussion on advances in the treatment of cancer of the cervix, for the reason that, since I retired from practice, just a year ago, my personal advance has been in the temporal rather than the gynaecological direc¬ tion. But ’tis a pleasant thing, says Lucretius,f to watch our colleagues toiling, especially when they are at sea, and as lookers-on proverbially see most of the game, having played the game for forty years, perhaps I may be able to point out some advances which have been made, some advances which need making, and some methods of inquiry which give a false impression of the fact, the degree, and the direction of advance. In this last connexion I would emphasize the futility of placing any reliance upon statistical inquiries based upon insufficient data, with which the literature of the subject abounds. These statistics purport to give the “ absolute cure ” rate of various methods of treatment in figures carried to two places of decimals, and if, like a celebrated Chancellor of the Exchequer, you inquire the meaning of those “ damned dots,” you will usually find that neither they nor the integers have any value, and that the “ absolute cure ” rate thus expressed is absolute cant. To ascertain the 11 absolute cure ” rate—that is, the proportion of patients cured (after, say, five years) to patients seen—is a difficult matter on account of the large numbers concerned, the want of compulsory notification of cancer, and the absence of particulars of the treatment in the death certificates of patients who have been affected with cancer; but it may be done for small numbers without much difficulty, and I appeal to the younger gynaecologists to follow up for a period of five or ten * Made in opening a discussion at the Medical Society of London on March 26th. t “ Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis, E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem ; Non quia vexari quemquam est jucunda voluptas, Sed, quibus ipse malis careas, quia cernere suave est.” [160/28]