Report of a meeting of the Cancer Commission of Harvard University in aid of a hospital for incurable cases of cancer : Wednesday, April 13, 1910.

  • Harvard University. Cancer Commission.
Date:
[1910]
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report of a meeting of the Cancer Commission of Harvard University in aid of a hospital for incurable cases of cancer : Wednesday, April 13, 1910. 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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    dies and Gentlemen: I suppose we all know that cancer is the most hor- rible disease wTich affli&s humanity, with one exception. On that exception it has been the policy of this community to ob- serve an absolute silence. Now, the terrible nature of the disease being clearly in our minds, what is there to encourage us to hope that science is go- ing to find a remedy ? The basis of hope is the wonderful series of conquests over for- midable diseases which has been achieved during the nineteenth century and the few years of the twentieth. The conquest of diseases by the progress of medical science and research is one of the most extraor- dinary phenomena of the nineteenth cen- tury. When we look back to Jenner’s dis- covery, vaccination against smallpox, we see the starting-point of a wonderful series of rapid and effectual discoveries in preventive and curative medicine, preventing the spread of formidable diseases, and curing formida- ble diseases. That is the blessed encour- agement we feel to exped the successful dis- covery of means of prevention and of cure for cancer. Now that hope is strong, firm, assured. Without such hope we should