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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    such a way that they formed parts of one coordinated investigation, the results of which will, I hope, show you that during the past three years many contradictions have been resolved, fallacies have been exposed, new facts have been elicited, the experimental method of investigating cancer has been placed on a sure and comparative basis, and the whole field of inquiry narrowed. Ethnological and Zoological Distribution, The energy of medical and other Colonial officials speedily led to the discovery of cases of cancer in native races of mankind hitherto supposed to be exempt, dwelling in parts of the world remote from European civilisation. Where, in the first instance, the disease was not found, cases have since been brought to notice. The inhabitants of Japan and China suffer from cancer, and upwards of 1000 cases have now been reported from the numerous native castes coming under the observation of European medical officers in India. The Danish Government informed us of its occurrence in the Arctic regions. The hearty response of the veterinary profession to the appeals addressed to them brought a surprising amount of material from domesticated mammals and some from wild animals in activity. One of our earliest cases was a carcinoma mammse in a wild mouse. Malignant new growths were obtained from birds (tame and wild), some from fish—e. g., from trout in hatcheries and from carp, also from marine fish living in a state of nature. Independently of us, Dr. Pick of Berlin described cases of malignant new growths in a fowl, a giant salamander, and in trout, the last having been originally recorded by Miss Plehn. A large tumour in an oyster, described as long ago as 1887, has been brought to our notice, and efforts are being made to find out its true nature. The information on all the above lines continues to accumulate, and the search has been taken up in widely separated parts of the world. A few weeks ago Sir William McGregor forwarded a specimen of what is probably a malignant new growth in a codfish caught off Newfound- land, and Dr. Smallwood of Syracuse, U.S.A., sent us specimens of a new growth in a frog which we find is a columnar-cell carcinoma infiltrating the kidney. Recently Professor Welsh of Sydney, New South Wales, has also noted the occurrence of cancer in an aged lioness, an old tigress, and in a marsupial; likewise another growth in a frog. Dr. Pick continues to augment our knowledge of malignant