Advance in knowledge of cancer / issued by The Research Defence Society.

  • Bashford, Ernest Francis, 1873-
Date:
[1908?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Advance in knowledge of cancer / issued by The Research Defence Society. 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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    Issued by The Research Defence feociETTf. ‘' I !■ ADVANCE IN KNOWLEDGE^ 'OF CANCER (2'Ae Editor of Nature has kindly allowed the Committee of the Research Defence Society to reprint for the Society’s use the following article by Dr. Bashford, Director of Imperial Cancer Research. Dr. Bashford, also, has kindly agreed to let the article be thus used.) In conformity with a scheme of inquiry embarked upon ’ in October, 1902, the third scientific report of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, recently issued, treats, like its predecessors, of cancer as a problem of general and experimental biology. It contains no definite answer to the questions. What is the nature and what the cause of cancer ? and beyond demonstrating that systematic experiment justifies the early surgical re- ' moval of a tumour as the only possible treatment at the present time, the report is silent as to remedial and preventive measures. These shortcomings will almost certainly arouse misgivings on the part of those who cannot appreciate how progress is made in any field of knowledge. They will also, no doubt, be seized upon by persons who, in their ignorance, assert that all scientific efforts should be concentrated on utilitarian ends, and they will be exploited by the charlatan, to whom for a space a free field is still left for his nostrums. The sustained efforts of the past six years to penetrate the mysteries of cancer have been accompanied by a corresponding activity on the part of faddists and quacks who advertise themselves by proclaiming the failure of scientific investigation to yield “ practical fruits.” The danger of their literary activity is but