An address entitled Are the problems of cancer insoluble? : delivered before the Brighton and Sussex Medico-Chirurgical Society on December 7th, 1905 / by E.F. Bashford.

  • Bashford, Ernest Francis, 1873-
Date:
[1905]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: An address entitled Are the problems of cancer insoluble? : delivered before the Brighton and Sussex Medico-Chirurgical Society on December 7th, 1905 / by E.F. Bashford. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ARE THE PROBLEMS OF CANCER INSOLUBLE? Delivered before tlie Brighton and Sussex Medico-Chirurgical Society on December 7th, 1905, By E. F. BASHFORD, M.D.Edin., GENERAL SUPERINTENDENT OE RESEARCH, ANI) DIRECTOR OF THE LABORATORY, IMPERIAL CANCER RESEARCH FUND. Gentlemen,—Referring to du Bois - Reymond's discussion of the limits to physiological inquiry, Mach, in his 44 Analysis of the Sensa- tions,” points out that those problems which are insoluble from their very nature should be outside the domain of scientific thought. He suggests that their insoluble nature depends on the form in which they are stated—depends, in short, on an erroneous formulation. Rational thought, must devise a re-statement of such problems in a way that makes their investigation profitable. More than other problems of medicine, the problems of cancer present a varying facies, according to the number, the variety, and the nature of the facts which we take into our purview in attempting to formulate them, and the conflicting standpoints of different investigators are the natural result. Experience and discussion have, however, already provided for the proper for- mulation and solution of some of those problems ; but the history of the investigation of cancer presents many instances of problems still baffling solution because, as I believe, having been originally formulated on insufficient data, they have been wrongly formulated. Nevertheless their direct solution continues to be freshly attempted. a