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ANNUAL

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Originally appearing in Volume V05, Page 177 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ANNUAL See also:

DEATH-RATES FROM See also:CANCER TO A MILLION LIVING. See also:England and See also:Wales. In See also:forty years the recorded See also:rate had risen from 403 to 861. The question how far these and similar See also:statistics represent a real increase cannot be satisfactorily resolved, ' because it is impossible to ascertain how much of the apparent increase is due to more accurate diagnosis and improved See also:registration. Some of it is certainly due to those causes, so that the recorded figures cannot be taken to represent the facts as they stand. At the same See also:time it is certain that some increase has taken See also:place in consequence of the increased See also:average length of See also:life; a larger proportion of persons now reach the ages at which cancer is most frequent. Increase due to this fact, though it is a real increase, does not indicate that the cause of cancer is more rife or more potent; it only means that the See also:condition of the See also:population in regard to See also:age is more favourable to its activity. On the whole it seems probable that, when See also:allowance has been made for this See also:factor and for errors due to improved registration; a real increase due to other causes has taken place, though it is not so See also:great as the recorded statistics would indicate. The See also:long-established conclusions concerning the incidence of the disease in regard to age and See also:sex have been confirmed and rendered more precise by See also:modern statistics. Cancer is a disease of old age; the incidence at the ages of sixty-five to seventy-five is ten times greater than at the ages See also:thirty-five to forty-five. This fact is the source of frequent fallacies when different countries or districts and different periods are compared with each other, unless See also:account is taken of the See also:differences in age and constitution. With regard to sex See also:females are far more liable than See also:males; the respective death-rates per million living for England and Wales in 1904 were—males 740; females 1006.

But the two rates show a tendency to approximate; the increase shown over a See also:

series of years has been considerably more rapid among males than among females. One result of more careful examination of statistics has been to discredit, though perhaps somewhat hastily, certain observations regarding the prevalence of cancer in See also:special districts and special houses. On the other See also:hand the See also:fuller statistics now available concerning the relative frequency of cancer in the several See also:organs and parts of the See also:body, of which some account is given above, go to confirm the old observation that cancer commonly begins at the seat of some See also:local irritation. By far the most frequent seats of disease are the uterus and See also:breast in See also:women and the See also:digestive See also:tract in both sexes, and these are all particularly subject to such irritation. With regard to the See also:influence of See also:heredity the trend of modern See also:research is to minimize or deny its importance in cancer, as in See also:phthisis, and to explain See also:family histories by other considerations. At most heredity is only thought to confer a predisposition. The only " cure " for cancer remains removal by operation; but improved methods of diagnosis enable this to be done in Treat- many cases at an earlier See also:stage of the disease than. Treat- See also:mid. formerly; and modern methods of See also:surgery permit not only of operation in parts of the body formerly inaccessible, but also more See also:complete removal of the affected tissues. Numerous forms of treatment by modern therapeutic means, both See also:internal and See also:external, have been advocated and tried; but they are all of an experimental nature and have failed to meet with See also:general See also:acceptance. One of the most See also:recent is treatment by trypsin, a pancreatic ferment. This has been suggested I77 by Dr See also:John See also:Beard of See also:Edinburgh in conformity with the theory, mentioned above, that failure of the pancreatic secretions is the cause of cancer. It has been claimed that the See also:drug exercises a favourable influence in See also:conjunction with operation and even without it.

The experience of different observers with regard to results is contradictory; but clinical investigations conducted at See also:

Middlesex See also:hospital in a number of cases of undoubted cancer in strict accordance with Dr Beard's directions, and summarized by Dr See also:Walter See also:Ball and Dr See also:Fairfield See also:Thomas in the See also:Sixth See also:Report from the Cancer Research Laboratories (Archives of Middlesex Hospital, vol. ix.) in May 1907, resulted in the conclusion " that the course of cancer, considered both as a disease and as a morbid See also:process, is unaltered by the See also:administration of trypsin and amylopsin." The same conclusion has been reached after similar trials at the cancer hospital. Another experimental method of treatment which has attracted much See also:attention is application of the X-rays. The results vary in a capricious and inexplicable manner; in some cases marked benefit has followed, in others the disease has been as markedly aggravated. Until more is known both of cancer and of X-rays, their use must be considered not only experimental but risky. (A.

End of Article: ANNUAL

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