Western Medical Review Volume 20, No. 7 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 Excerpt: ...of malignant disease in the eighteen members of the family in three generations. In another family, five of the seven children of an apparently healthy couple died of gastric cancer without any known cause such as abuse of tobacco or trauma. One of the remaining two children suffers occasionally from the stomach. In this family the stomach was the only organ affected and the malignant disease did not develop until long after the children had left the home roof and scattered. Pel knows of another family in which three sisters, their mother and grandmother, all died of cancer of the breast. Van Iterson has also reported from Leyden a family of ten persons in two generation of whom eight have succumbed to cancer, including four cases of cancer of the breast. Haeberlin has reported that a history of cancer in the family was found in 10.9 per cent, of 138 cases (gastric cancer in 8 per cent.). A collective inquiry in 1901 as to the prevalence of cancer in Holland, elicited data to the effect that the parents and grandparents had had cancer in 10 per cent, of 878 cases, and that in 18.1 per cent, there was a history of cancer in the family. Why Early Cancer Is Curable There is still a widespread misapprehension that cancer is a constitutional disease caused by some substance or poison in the blood. Those who hold this mistaken opinion commonly believe that the disease is hereditary, and in a vague way they think there must be some taint handed down from one generation to another which causes cancer to flourish in certain families. In the minds of people not well informed on the subject this belief may well cause a feeling that it is somehow shameful to have the disease. Such misapprehension, combined with the notion which has long prevailed that cancer is a hopel...