The Conquest of Cancer

The Conquest of Cancer by H.W.S. Wright

H. W. S. Wright argues that cancer can largely be prevented or cured with existing methods, but only if public fear, delay, and reliance on palliative medicine are replaced by education, routine examination, and prompt treatment. He maintains that early cancer and advanced cancer are effectively different diseases: early lesions can often be permanently removed with little operative danger, whereas many patients reach surgeons only after the disease has spread beyond cure. Cancer is therefore presented less as an unsolved technical problem than as a failure of diagnosis, courage, and public understanding. Cancer is described as a degenerative, atypical reproduction of cells, especially common after the age of fifty and in tissues whose biological work is supposedly finished or repeatedly injured. Carcinomata commonly arise in sites of longstanding inflammation or irritation. The author traces cancer of the lip from repeated burning and cracking caused by a clay pipe, through a persistent ulcer and invasive growth, to spread through lymphatic channels into neck glands. Early removal can offer near-certain cure, while delay drastically reduces the chance of survival. The essay rejects popular beliefs that cancer is necessarily painful, rapidly wasting, contagious, or hereditary. Pain and wasting generally belong to late, often incurable disease. Although parasites and other causes are considered, Wright stresses chronic irritation and acid conditions as the most important practical factors. He associates cancers of the womb, breast, stomach, kidney, bladder, gall bladder, tongue, lip, bowel, and skin with prior disease, mechanical injury, stones, ulcers, chemicals, heat, tobacco, alcohol, broken teeth, soot, oils, dyes, X-rays, betel nut, and other persistent irritants. Experiments in animals, in which tar and similar substances produce warts that may become cancerous, are offered as strong evidence that chronic irritation can create a predisposition to malignant growth. Wright concentrates on cancer of the breast, uterus, and stomach. Breast cancer is said often to be preceded by chronic inflammation; doubtful breasts should therefore be examined microscopically, even though some operations will prove unnecessary. Cases without palpable gland involvement have much better results than those in which glands are involved, and the months patients spend delaying treatment cost many otherwise curable lives. Cancer of the uterus likewise often follows treatable precancerous conditions, yet many women arrive too late for cure. Statistics from Professor Faure show that early cases have far lower operative mortality and far higher cure rates than mediocre or bad cases. Stomach cancer is frequently said to arise in chronic gastric ulcers, many of which are already malignant when operated on. Wright urges exploration and possible operation when a chronic ulcer recurs after proper medical treatment, rather than repeated temporary relief by medicines. X-rays and radium can destroy cancerous tissue before healthy tissue, but their limited penetration and the danger that inadequate doses may stimulate growth prevent them from replacing surgery in operable cases. Their chief value lies in combination with surgery, particularly in treating remaining cells and preventing superficial recurrences; they may also make some advanced growths operable. Complete surgical removal remains the most reliable treatment then available. The central remedy is a sustained campaign to make people seek examination before pain or severe symptoms appear. Wright proposes routine examination every six months for people over forty, prompt treatment of precancerous lesions, and investigation of persistent gastric symptoms. He compares this approach to regular dental care and the early operation of suspected appendicitis: some unnecessary procedures are acceptable if they prevent many deaths. The essay ends by calling on the Press, public speakers, and doctors to use explanation and counter-suggestion to overturn fear and fatalism and establish the habit of looking for cancer rather than waiting for it.

By H.W.S. Wright · First published 1954 · Genre: Medical Nonfiction, Public Health, Medical Essay · 10,192 words

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The cure of cancer is now ceasing to become a purely medical problem, to be solved by biologists, pathologists and surgeons, and is becoming a problem in psychology, and education, to be solved by publicists, schoolmasters, and perhaps, when enough people are alive to the facts of the situation, by legislators and statesmen.

This may sound a bold thing to say, but I hope to be able to bring forward evidence proving that it is at present possible to cure seventy-five per cent. of cancer cases with a mortality of under five per cent.

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The Conquest of Cancer is listed on Textopian as an article by H.W.S. Wright, dated 1954 CE.

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cancer prevention · early cancer diagnosis · public health education · medical essay · popular medical writing · early twentieth-century Britain · surgical treatment · cancer surgery · precancerous lesions · chronic irritation · cancer pathology · carcinoma

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