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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    in his native Africa was said to be free from cancer ; the negro of America was known to be prone to it. The veterinary profession had shown that all the forms of cancer occurred in domesticated mammals ; but medical men alleged, or were unable to disprove, that this was due to contact with man. Wild animals were said to be free from it. The evidence for its occurrence outside the mammals was regarded with the greatest distrust. Doubts were even expressed as to the identity of the disease in man and animals, although in 1899 Professor (now Sir) J. McFadyean had protested against the assertion of a distinguished member of the medical profession that cancer was a disease peculiar to man. The Investigation of Cancer stilt in a State of Confusion and Error. The confusion of opinions and conflicting statements of fact were disconcerting in the extreme to the mere medical man seeking guidance. The chaotic state of the whole matter was emphasised by the absence of any criteria serving as guide-posts in the wilderness of fact and fiction. Obviously where so much divergence of opinion was possible, many of the matters under discussion were open to ambiguity of interpretation or insufficiently supported by accurate observation. Investigation was hampered by the need for paying heed to a mass of disorderly details without any more obvious relation to one another than could be found for them in the imaginations of a multitude of authors wildly guessing at truth and formulating the problem they sought to solve in terms fitted less to the facts than to the solutions advanced. Truly there was, and is, need for work, much work and accurate observation, to cope with the flood of speculation and to elevate the investigation of cancer from the kind of “Tom Tiddler’s” domain it had become and unfortunately still remains. From the outline I have given, it will be evident to you that we had to attempt to solve not one but many problems associated with cancer. Organised Attempt to Systematise Investigation. Those responsible for the institution of what is now the Imperial Cancer Research Fund foresaw that only a very far-reaching scheme of inquiry, backed by the most disinterested supervision possible— that of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons—would suffice