The campaign against cancer : educational, experimental and clinical / by William Seaman Bainbridge.

  • Bainbridge, William Seaman, 1870-1947.
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The campaign against cancer : educational, experimental and clinical / by William Seaman Bainbridge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    4/28 (page 2)
    with reference to cancer for both physician and layman. Just what is the best method of conduct¬ ing such a campaign is a mooted question. Because, perhaps, of the general uncer¬ tainty concerning the etiology of malignant disease, and a certain amount of uncertain¬ ty concerning its pathology, the medical profession has seemed loath to take a defi¬ nite stand in the matter of educating the public concerning cancer. This is particu¬ larly true of America. Some have held back for reasons of professional ethics (a consideration which should pale into insig¬ nificance when measured by the standard of the broader ethics of one’s duty to one’s fellow man). Others have been deterred because of the danger, real or fancied, of creating a veritable cancer-phobia, and thus making the situation worse than it is. The soundness of both of these argu¬ ments has been definitely tested in a few instances. In Germany, for example, Winter and von Duehrrsen, among others, have for a number of years carried on a campaign of education among women con¬ cerning- cancer of the pelvic organs. They have sent out broadcast throughout Ger¬ many, circulars of information and instruc¬ tion for women, and have printed in the secular press, at stated intervals, such in¬ formation and instruction. As a consequence of this form of en¬ lightenment it is reported that the number of women who present themselves at the clinics of these surgeons, and presumably of others, while yet in the early and curable stages of cancer of the pelvic organs has increased year by year. This naturally leads to a decrease in the number of cases of advanced and incurable cancer among women. Harvard Medical College, by means of lectures and the exhibition of charts, pic¬ tures, etc., open to laymen, has endeavored to arouse public interest in cancer. A number of societies, in this country and abroad, have organized committees for the purpose of investigating cancer and the question of the promulgation of knowledge concerning it among physicians and lay¬ men. The American Medical Association, through its Public Health Education Com¬ mittee, has inaugurated a valuable cam¬ paign of education which includes cancer. Public lectures have already been given in this connection in various localities, and work is being planned for a more extensive campaign. In addition to this, many articles and books bearing directly upon the educational side of the question, and embracing more or less theoretical as well as practical in¬ formation, have been published. It must be admitted that such a campaign concerning a subject about which there is so much controversy has its disadvantages as well as its advantages. These result largely from the ill-advised selection of the subject matter promulgated. Not only is there danger of inculcating misconception in the lay mind by the discussion of the purely theoretical or the tentative experi¬ mental views concerning cancer, but many absolutely erroneous ideas are apt to be given forth by faddists who become so impressed with one particular phase of the many-sided problem that they see in this the solution of the whole problem. Illustrations of the harmfulness of the promulgation of theoretical views with re¬ gard to cancer might be multiplied many times. In a previous communication* the author cited a number of such instances. The method of obviating false and harm¬ ful impressions concerning cancer is plain. Let the medical profession, within their own ranks, thresh out the unsettled questions to whatever extent is necessary, but while this is being done among themselves let them take the public into their confidence in regard only to the settled questions. The¬ oretical teaching should be eliminated from the campaign of education as it applies to the layman, and attention should be con¬ centrated upon such information as has a definite bearing upon the prevention of the disease on the one hand, and the early diag¬ nosis and cure on the other. EXPERIMENTAL. The exact anatomical study of cancer, by which investigators of a century or more ago endeavored to determine the re¬ lationship between cancerous and healthy tissue, and the histological and clinical ob¬ servations of the last fifty years, have *Transmissibility and Curability of Can¬ cer.—Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, July 27, 1907.