My main reason for making this heterodox suggestion is based on my own observations, confirmed by others, of the effects of removal of malignant tumours when very rapidly growing, and more especially when affecting the breast tissue (no medicinal measures being employed at the same time). In these cases the tendency to recur in a far more virulent and disseminated form, at a site other than the original one, is peculiarly marked. If the initial tumour is the fountain source of all the trouble, why is it that such recurrences are invariably more malignant than the original tumour which has been removed? It is surely only common sense to suppose that if the whole disease is centred in the original tumour, the removal of this tumour ought to be followed, if it is followed, if it is followed at all, by metastases less virulent in type, because the main source of infection has been removed.
But if the suggestion I have put forth is correct, what a dire responsibility rests on the shoulders of anyone who removes a malignant growth when it is in an active state, and at the same time neglects to deal with the constitutional state.
Outside our own small coterie the whole word to-day is asking “why the treatment of Cancer has so lamentably failed in the past.”
My answer is, It is because of the insistent, and persistent, teaching that the disease is fundamentally a local one. If the profession at large will only adopt the far more reasonable conception of its constitutional origin, and treat the disease intelligently on this basis, using the homoeopathic law to guide them in the choice of remedies, a great deal less will be heard of failure in the future.
The immense importance of Homoeopathy as the greatest stimulator of the vis medicatrix nature cannot be too forcibly emphasized.
In opening the discussion on Dr. Clarke’s paper at the British Homoeopathic Congress in 1924, I suggested that patients who were habitually treated homoeopathically, in other words, those who have their recuperative forces kept in efficient action (and in no other way can this be so effectively done) are far less likely to become victims of malignant disease. This is surely a reasonable assumption, for the homoeopath treats a patient who presents symptoms pointing to deranged health on definite specific scientific lines, before any demonstrable organic, or namable, disease has presented itself, thus repairing any weakness in Nature’s armour, and protecting the body against the inroad of any possible enemy.
It may seem strange to suggest that the forces at work in the tumour may be of a “chemical” nature, but what of Dr. Gye’s “specific factor,” which holds some specific non-living substance without which the non-cellular virus cannot develop in the tissues of some particular breed of fowl, or rodent, to which this is specifically related?
I have for many years held the view that the underlying cause of Cancer is, in all probability, a micro-organism which invades the blood-stream, and which is responsible for the subsequent development of the visible manifestation of the disease.
Dr. gye’s and Mr. Barnard’s researches have at least given some little colour to this view, so far as it relates to a micro- organism, but they have hitherto dealt entirely with the tumour itself. When they extended their researches to the blood, it will not surprise me if they confirm my suspicions. These researches, coupled with the work of Professor Louis W. Sambon and that of Mr. Ellis Barker, the value of whose investigations cannot be denied, will probably result in prophylactic measures being taken to eradicate the disease, and protect humanity from its invasion, but still then we have to treat cases as they appear, and I hope you will allow me to give a brief epitome of my views in this regard.
First, I wish to emphasize a point which is of vital importance, the more so as it is in direct contradiction to the usually accepted tenets. My twenty-four years’ experience of this disease leads me to affirm that it is vastly more dangerous to the system to remove a rapidly growing malignancy tumour by operation than one which is of slow growth; the danger being in direct proportion to the rapidity of growth. The old teaching almost unanimously urges that the more rapidly growing a tumour is, the more danger there is of systemic infection from it, therefore the more urgent the necessity for its removal.
But, if my theories are correct, and I think the evidence I have adduced gives them considerably more weight than mere theories, then the foundation of this old teaching is removed, and it becomes obvious that it is a very dangerous practice indeed to follow such a line of treatment, and to neglect the vital constitutional factor of the disease.
I ask you, gentlemen, could possibly be a more urgent field for discussion than this?
If I have succeeded in convincing you by facts that this disease is constitutional, then the old routine treatment, which has produced such lamentable results, must go by the board, and we must drive home to all our brethren the vital necessity of treating the constitutional condition first, mainly, and all the time.
This should be done before any local measures are contemplated, with a view to obtaining control over the disease, as evidenced by cessation of a activity of the growth, together with as evidenced by cessation of activity of the growth, together with sign of improved general health.
To achieve this we have the homoeopathic remedies as indicated by the totality of the symptoms, which alone may bring about the desired result. If other remedies are required, we can employ one whose specificity of site corresponds with the particular part of the body involved, it being still more indicated if it belongs to that group of remedies which may be classed as “anti-cancerous,” i.e., those which have been relief recorded to have cured well proved cases of cancer in the past. Besides this, we have the Nosodes which I for one would be very sorry to be without, and the use of which I have demonstrated, and finally we have the question of diet.
I have always been accustomed, as a routine measure, to stop all red meat, i.e., beef and mutton, and to caution patients against taking an excess of salt, and sugar, also I have always encouraged them in the use of fresh fruit, and latterly I have further advised the use of uncooked vegetables in accordance with the late Dr. Bell’s suggestion, for whose memorable address to the British Homoeopathic Society, just before his death, we have to thank Dr. Burford.
The usual hygienic measures of fresh air and suitable exercise need no comment.
If the patient’s own powers, thus stimulated, are insufficient to effect the complete absorption of the growth which sometimes occurs, and there is reason to believe that this may become a danger to the system in after years, under conditions tending to weaken the resistance of the system, it will be advisable to use local measures to get rid of it. These rest between operation and the resort to rays of various kinds, and as to these latter, I wish to bring to the notice of the Congress a very great advance which has been recently effected by Dr. Martin Berry, to whose work my attention was first directed by Dr. Burford, whose own researches have thrown so much light on the cancer problem and to whose encouragement, and that of my honoured and greatly revered friend Dr.Clarke, I owe so much.
I had long ago discarded X-rays as not only useless, but actually dangerous in cases of Cancer, till Dr. Berry suddenly changed all this by entirely altering the methods of application, his results being so successful that he tells me he has not failed in a single case in the past to remove both primary and secondary carcinomatous and sarcomatous growths. This seems a big statement, and if he can nearly approach this percentage in the future, consider what a valuable asset we have; for these rays can penetrate and remove growths from positions which surgery cannot reach, picking our the diseased cells from the healthy ones with as clear a line of demarcation as Sir jagadis Bose’s stain differentiates the muscle cells of plants.
His method consists in administering unit doses of X-rays of the maximum skin dose, and in the form of very hard rays, very highly filtered, with as much as half a millimetre of copper. The tube used is a self-hardening, boiling-water tube with a spark-gap of 16 inches. These rays, which are inimical to cancer cells, but leaves the healthy cells unharmed, are directed from different points, with a view to saturate the area involved evenly with radiation. One such saturation is required as a unit dose, and it is not repeated till the beneficial effect has worn off. This may be as long as six to twelve months, when the maximum dose is again given. How strangely in principle does this resemble our own unit dose!
There is one pitfall in this which it is vitally necessary to emphasize, viz., that this removal may be regarded as a complete cure by the physician and the patient, but it is no more so than excision by the knife, and Dr.Berry, with his open- minded comprehensive outlook, acknowledges as much.
