BATTLING THE CANCER SCOURGE.
HOW RADIUM IS BEING EMPLOYED: ITS WORTH AND VALUE TO HUMANITY. INSTRUCTIVE ADDRESS AT THE ROTARY CLUB
The scourge of the human racecancer, and the most effective weapon known to mankind for combating it-radium, figured pro-. minently in an address given by Dr. Howard Montgomery at the Rotary Club luncheon yesterday.
Dr. Montgomery's address was ou "Radium, its History, Source, Physics, and Uses.”
Sir William Hornell was in the chair, and owing to the pro- sunce of the tourist ship Columbas in harbour, there were fivo. visitors from this ship among the nascmbly. They wore Messrs. C. S. Braningham, Rev. John Gordon, Mr. H. P. Burpeo of the Rockford Rotary Club, Mr. C, 1. Buxton of Owatonna, Minnesota. and Mr. V. Brown of Milwaukee, Wisconsių.
DISEASE THAT
its uses in cancer cases.
HONG KONG DAILY PRESS, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 1931.
*
CORRESPONDENCE.
10: the different uite" of the denogao, The needles I have spoken of are sometimes pushed right into the
(All letters intended for publi growth and allowed to remain threation must be accompanied by the for periods of a week or more, In name and addren of the writer, not other cases. we apply it to the suf- for publication, unless so desired, face embedded in Columbia pasto, but as evidence of good faith.-ED.] and in still others wo insert it into the various cavities of the body and try to get overy part of the growth irridiated by the [To THE EDITOR OF THE Gemma rays.
ן י'
THE NEW CIVILISATION.
DAILY PRESS,"
“SUI TAI” OPIUM SEIZURE,
THREE DEFENDANTS DISCHARGED.
Due to the inability of the pro- secution to show uvidence of owner- slip of the 1,020 tecla of opiun HONG KONG which were saiard on board the s.8. Šai Tai on March 13, three of tho defendants were discharged yester- day by Mr. Schofield at the Central Police Court.
&
I am sure a question in the minds
Sin-After reading the roport of many of you is this:In radium which you were good enough To a cure for cancer, or does radium bently to publish of my lecture, it do mors for cancer patients than is a source of great regret to see Revenue Officer Ward, who made that more adequate acknowledge the atrasts, told of the finding of surgery is doing or has done in tho
ment was not given to various past? First of all I would answer authorities and authors from whose the opium under a water tank. No that "euro" is an unfortunate word works many suggestions were ob-evidence of ownership could. be regarding cancer, as it is in other tained. An opportunity to express produced, however, and the defence obligation to soveral writers on diseases. It would be necessary to China has been kindly offered to held that the prisoners could not defino what is meant by the word us, and will, in a few months, bebe detained any longer.
Revenue Officer Ward, in the AFFECTS ALL CLASSES. euro." Fow people to-day would taken advantage of, when it is hoped to be able to nekowledge fully olaim that tuberculosis or leprosy the debt due to that brilliant Con- witness box, deposed to finding fur- can be cured in the sense that the sul of sixty years ago, Meadows: ther opium on a graling over disease is irradicated and will to Dr. A. H. Smith; and many stokehole and the arrest of Leung others whose experience and works never return, but they would claim must make the mere amateur very laten, the fourth defendant, who, that, the disenso can be arrested or diffident of expressing views differ- it is alleged, owned 82,640 worth of Con- opium which was scited aboard the becoins quiescent or show no visible ing in any way to their own.
cerning applied science work, the signs and gives rise to no symp Engineer, many technical papers same boat. According to witness I would claim and arm (including the Far Eastern Review the defendant was the only toms. most strongly that we have in and American technical journals, who had access to the place in etc.) over, many years were most radium a most powerful weapon to valuable. All of these books and which the opium was hidden. R. fight the enemy of mankind-a-journals were au almost inexhaust-0. Ward also stated that at the cot. It does produce disappearance bio mine which supplied most of time the opium was discovered the of the native growth nad tumour the ora contained in the lecture. in many cases and the cessation if anything in it was worthy of that defendant admitted ownership but when bo was called to tentify he of symptoms such as pain, hem
Perhaps anyone who makes a denied that he had made such a orhnge, etc., and in the chace where it does not produce complete speech or gives a lecture should statement. disappearance of the growth, there preface it with the acknowledgment His Worship found defendant is a prolongation of life in most that in its preparation, like an in-guilty and imposed a fine of $2,000 fant, ho takes great content in the
r one year's hard labour. case
Badium Operatiop. act of suction-in extracting aweet- ness and nutrition from minds Anything greater than his own. about the past worth listening to or reading, must be the result of
After dealing with the history, fblent At one time some authori- source and physics of radium, ties thought it had, but it is hard Hotarian Montgomery, dealing with to accept that as cancer is a world its uses, said:-From the stand wide disease, no country, no race, point of the general public, how being immune from it, from the les radium is used, what are its effects bound countrion of the north and and what can be hoped from it in south to the equator. The diets the treatment of disease, is, perged in these countries differ great haps, the most important and they and yet all are liable to the
at interesting.
discuse and almost the only things Most of you know that radium common to the diets of all these bas become a great help to our pre-countries are water and salt, and sent methods in fighting the terrible as far as we know these cannot be Ncourge of mankind-cancer. It is blamed. also used with wonderful results in
All classes, too, are affected, from other non-cancerous diseases, int the highest in the iged to the humblest and poorest, If nothing time does not permit me to dwell ou le dono at present to prevent en these and I will refer only to can done attacking people, it I do not think the public renlises j'thore anything that can be done the disease manifests itself} what a scourge canear is although ones the appaling number of deaths for Intil recent years surgery was the which cancor is responsible is boing, only trentoont worth considering gradually brought home. The maand surgeons devised and carried out the most wonderful operations jority of my audience to-day, think, are over 40 years of age, to rid a patient of cancer. A which is termed the cancer age, and their skill grow, and their know according to the latest statisties Indue of the spread of cancer grew, three out of every ten people over these pparations were extended, not 40 years of age will develop cancer, paly to attack the site of the disease Nor is that the whole story; al but also to attack, the lymphatics though enucer is far more prevalent and glands into which and by The from 40 upwards, many people which the cancer spreads. under 40 are also attacked. zungt skilful surgeons doing the most wonderful operations often failed, the severity of the operation sometimes killed a patient or they were unable to get rid of the disease, and so the cancer recurred, ding, before long, in the death of the patient.
It is able to help many that surgeons would not attempt is aparate on. It causes little or no mutilation, there is littlo risk-
namo.
to life in applying it and is pain-much reading. It was Sheridan (or was it Burke) who suggested that less to the patient in most cases, though, many noodles inserted into he borrowed the aid of intellects the tongue for example, cause die-superior to his own in the know- comfort amounting to pain. It ledge that, for the time, they raised those contemplated. Just as na obviates the necessity for a pre-his mind nearer to the staturo of longed surgical operating which is aften much trended by patients, invention is practically never the also the subsequent mutilation work of one individual, but the when whole organs ars removed, integrated efforts of many, so must and the immediate risk to life from anything written that is worth irridiation by radium is practical ronding bo the winnowing of many harvests mada trom fields sown, watered and cut by others.
oil as compared to the grave risk of serious surgical operations For cancer of the face, tongue, soit
If the leisure obtainable only
man
emphasises the very noble service. rendered by both Mr. and Mrs. Makeham towards Service men in Hong Kong-Yours, etc..
J. H. GELLING,. Hon. Secretary, B. & S. Home Committee. Hong Kong, March 24, 1931,
6:
13, Ventris Road,
Hong Kong.
16th October 1930. Dear Mr. and Mrs MaxsyaM.— I am instructed by my Committer to conven to you both the following resolution which was carried un
Surgery can still do a great deal nalato, tonsils and larynx, radium aftor retirement from carning one's animously at the last monthly meet.
Gamma Rays.
The problem then was-radium always gives off three different kinds of rays at the same time, how then could the harmful Apha and Beta be cut off and the selec: tive beneficial Gamma · raya utilised, and how could all the cancer cells be reached and given a lethal dose that would kill them?
be
Biras
gery and is more and more used
lu those sites.
great desire to delve more deeply into the ently recorde of the For years surgeons have boen British in China. For it seems to showing the importance of getting me that our Chinese friends would cassa early while it is still a local be interested in and would approve the pioneers.. For many of these dispage and before it has spread of the endeavours made by those to other organe through
I have seen many cases of cancer in infants under a year old; num erous casos of boys and giris in their toens, developing, cancer in many as ten different places in their bodies at the same time, and still larger number of cases in both sexes between 20 and 40 years f age. Further, it is unfortunate
were sought until but it is true that the earlier in life other incans cancer attacken person, the more radium was introduced. Becquerel, malignant it is and the less chance when investigating the properties of rooovery. Let me put it in an of radium, carried a small amount other way. A few days ago I was of radium in his waistcoat pocket reading about the vital statistics in and later noticed a very severe England and Wales and found that burn was produced on his skin 13,300 people died from cancer dur-around that area, and from the phatice and blood stream. As pioneers, among the British in wag segards rading treatment, it is China were wise men. Sometimes it ing the last recorded year. That is famous "Becquerel Burn the largest number of deaths from born the modern radium treatment qually important to got the casos seems as if they took more trouble cancer ever recorded in England if cancer. Later experiments show sarly and if soen early before than their successors to understand and Wales during one year.
od that the Alpha and Beta rays plastenos have occurred, the local the Chinese point of view, Prob- asily produced erythema, peeling growth can in 20 to 80 per pentably they had morn Inisure-but it On the Increase.
and then destruction of the skin, o casos bo mada to disapper. Let does seem essential for us to under- Does that mean that cancer is on and that Gamma Raya were noto cite but one example. In ons stand, veu if we do not always the inereuso ? If you had asked me destructive, but had a selective common situation whero cancer at agree with, the outlook of our Chi- Since a speaker interested in that question a year ago I would action un enncer cells, inhibiting ticks people, the cases are divided eso friends. have replied "no," that it was only their growth and if a sufficient dose socording to the atago they are an apparent increase due to the as given, destroying the colls, 9 st into (1) early cases (2) economies said subsequently that with harmless border-line sea (3) inoparable economists had been unduly blamed replacing them fast that more attention was being
Oases After treatment with radium in the lecture, it may be exquseable Arous tissues. paid to the earlier symptoms of
in group one, the early cason to refer to the recent B.B.C. talks seventy per cent, showed no viga" on the "Problem of Unemploy exacer and that cases were being
Mr. Alexander Loveday's recognised and so recorded earlier.
of cancer after a period of fivement." To-day I would reply "t yes," to the
years, In group 2, the border line analysis of world depression ap. HC BRYA same question and believe that
caacs, only 40 per cent, showed no pears to explain much. cancer is increasing, and that it is
sign of cancer after five years, and that it is dangerous to attribute all an actual increase and not a ro-
ia group 3, the inoperable ones, of the present difficulties and de- Jative one. I say this, not on my
only twelve per cent. showed no pression to shortage of gold. own authority, but after having
signs of cancer after five years. In spent six months of the year on a
other words the chances of disaps world tour, studying the problem
pearance of the disease are Bix of cancer and the modern methods
The first part of the problem was times as great in the early eases of treating the disease. I have put soon solved. It was found possible as compared with the late casos. this same question to cancer and to cut off the Alpha and Beta raya It is unfortunate that the idea radium experts, to distinguished by means of various screens, and has got abroad that pain is an surgeons and physicians in allow the Gamma, rays to pass early manifestation of cancer and America, the British Tales, Europe, through. Many metals were used if a lump or tumour gives rise Japan and China, and I am bound and, finally, platinum was found to no pain it is usually benign and La suy the consensus of opinon ist to be the best. The radium is, harmless. That idea is contradic that cancer is on the increase. therefore, put in a fine capillary tory to the frets, Pain, as a rule, Again, cancer has one very per glass tube, sealed with gold at only occurs in the last stages of ploxing and disturbing elementaither end, and this in enclosed in cancer and the cases that have come about it and that is that na far os A platinum cover, shaped like a to be seen, when pain urges them we at present knos, we can do needle, oue ond being sharp and to seek advice, are usually beyond nothing to prevent its appearance one and having an eye. The all hope of curo or amelioration. and there are no preventative platinum, if of a m.m. thick, Djeasures we know of that are of will cut off 09.9 per cent, of the any avpil. Many other disparos we Alpha and Beta rays and allow
I boliavo in the earlier stages 'of ean avoid as individuals or as a the Gamma rays to pass through,
cancer à combination of surgery community by preventative mça- that ane can utilise the bone and radium treatment is the best sures, such as tubercule, leprosy, ficial rays and cut out the rays and in tho later stages, or in treat plague, malaria and many others. that burn and have little effect on ng recurrences, radium is the best
As regards cancer we have been the cancer colli
method. In prosenting to you the taught to deal with anything in the Now onncor in the earliest stages case for radium, I do not wish to lady producing chronic irritation, is an overgrowth of the colle at be unduly optimistic and lead any some part of the body. Apparent one to think that in radium we velop at such a site, for example, ly normal health cells auddenly have a case for all cases of cancer. the irritation of a jagged and de- take on a power of growth divid. It is true that oven with radium cayed tooth may produce cancer of ing and multiplying at an en- treatment many cases are lost and tho tongue, the irritation from
others rocur just as they do after ormous rate, until a visible or awnking too hot a pipe mouthpiece palpable lump is seen or felt I operations; but I think that it is.
March 23, 1931:“ not the fault of the radium but may be followed by cancer of the Gomma rays are allowed to act on lip, and the irritation, of gall these actively growing cells after because our methods are not yet stones in the gall bladder for a a time changes are seen in the cells, perfect by which we can long period may be followed by They divide irregularly and more overy cancer cell and give it a slowly and if the right dose of lethal dose without destroying the We know the irritation of soot radium is used the growth is ar healthy tissues. Radium treatment for long period often produces rested. The colla die and the roof cancer is still in its infancy and
abimney swoops cancer."" and the. irritation of crude oil produces the pair takes place by the formation has already given wonderful results [TO THE EDITOR OF THE "HONG KONG of fibrous tisque. Those changes and I believe that as a result of oil worker cancer. Certainly, chronic irritation of any kind, bocan actually be seen under the the careful research being done all
as caacor is far more liable to de
cancer.
it mechanical choice), thermal or pathological, predisposes to cancer.. Avold feritation
microscope.
How Rays are Uzod. The other part of the problem, how to get the rays through every It is therefore a wise precaution cancerous cell and what is the to avoid all forms of chronic lothal dose for the different forms irritation, but beyond that there is of cancer at the different sites in little thre-we-dan-suggest Has the body is being gradually solved. diet anything to do with the prol We use different methods according
Wonderful Results,
reach
over the world of the present time by the most eminent physicians. Burgeons, physicists, and cornists that the cause of cancer will be discovered and that the Gemma rays of radium will conquer, that hitherto unconquered. foe,
The speaker was thanked by Hon. Dr. A, X. Wellington for hip instructive address
the
Home Committee held on Weducs day, October 15.
On this departure from the Colony of Mr. and Mrs. Make- ham the Committee of the Sailors and Soldiers Home, Hong Kong, desire to conununi. cate to them and to place on re- cord. its deep appreciation of the serviers they have rendered to the Home throughout many years.
In addition to their unfailing support of all that has cuncerned the interests of the Home, they have rendered unique and price- lesa servion to Service Men by the generous way in which they have entertained them on many occa sions in their home and garden at Pokfulam. We feel sure that many Service Men now scattered all over the world remember themi with affection and gratitude, and would join with us in wishing them all joy and prosperity in their retirement." With all good wishes.-Yours sincerely,
(Sd) J. H. GALING, Hon. Secretary, S. & S. Home Committee.
TOTI DAL MONTE'S RECITAL.
ago I
дл
He oxplains that to-day the boger is the golden calf; a hundred years. ago it was Napoleon. He asks us to remember that every trouble was then attributed to Napoleon ! the burning of Covent Garden, and Drury Lane, as well as the rise in price of the quartern loot and the filling of butcher's alsops with large (TO THE EDITOR OF THE HONG KONG
DAILY PRESS,”] blue bottles. He thinks that there is a danger that the troubles of to-
Sin, Three weeks day will all be attributed to worship of the golden call." When nounced through the medium of he pleads for research and discus your columns that there would be in on this subject everyone vocal recital by the prima donna. anxious about the rising tide of Toti dal Monte, and her husband, unemployment will agree that it is do Muro Lomanto, at the Theatre
Royal on March 30, essential.
It has occasioned surprise that Tho. one fact that seems beyond up to the present no advertisements controversy is that by selling have appeared, nor has the booking British machinery in China, firms been opened. There has apparently will help the Chinese to develop the been some uncertainty, as to who natural resources of their other the singers could be here by country and reduce unemployment that date, and this has only just in Britain. It must be confessed been definitely confirmed.
Advertisements appear in the that it was in the hope of drawing attention to that fact that the same issue as this letter and seats fecture was given.
mony be reserved at once' at Mou- With apologies for the length of trics; but the short notice will un- this letter. Yours, etc,
C. A. MIDDLETON-SMITH.
THE LATE MR. MAKEHAM AND SERVICE MEN.
doubtedly affect the looking very considerably. Under the circum. stances, we must hope, for the sake of the artistes, that many people have kept the date open since the original intimation by this. Society. I need hardly add that these. artistes are world-renowned and that music-loyers may be assured of an enjoyable evening.Yours, etc..
A. M. HOWES SMITH,,
Hon! Secretary, Hong Kong Musical Society. P.S-I have just received, at 9 Six, In ponnection with the P.m., a telegram "stating that the death of Mr. Charles Makeham I Bakharoff performance on Friday is would retocin it a great favour it postponed... you would publish this cony-of s I trust that the public will not letter sent to Mr. and Mrs, Make blame the Society for these uncer ham last October on the eve of their tainties and congellations which departure from Hong Kong. It cause much unnecessary work and
worry.AM.B.S (Coptinualon-ness-Column:)=
-,;
DAILY PRESS."
Hong Kong, March 94, 1991.29
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