INTRODUCTION 3
In the eighth section of “The Belfast Address” the
physicist, Professor John Tyndall, wrote: “But there is in the true man of
science a desire stronger than the wish to have his beliefs upheld—namely, the
desire to have them true. And this stronger wish causes him to reject the most
plausible support if he has reason to suspect that it is vitiated by error.”
That is the writer’s position to-day. Six years ago he stated publicly that, in
the secretion of that important digestive gland, the pancreas, Nature had
furnished a potent means of coping with cancer. Even though there had been no
other successes at the hands of Captain Lambelle, R.A.M.C., or of others, the
successful issue of the case of the York ex-drummer, described in Chapter
VIII., demonstrates for all time the scientific truth of the foregoing
conclusion. The army surgeon who treated the patient, and the writer of these
lines, both invite the fullest investigation of this case. The tumour was
recurrent immediately after two operations upon it, and it had become
inoperable. The diagnosis was confirmed by microscopical examination of a
portion of the tumour-mass removed at the second operation by a pathologist of
the Royal Army Medical College. A section which he made is in the writer’s possession,
and from an examination of it he is able to say that the diagnosis given is not
open to the slightest question. The patient is alive and well, free from recurrence,
and his address is written across the copy of the ten charts of the case, all
certified and signed by the surgeon, and which, like the photographic
negatives, copies of the official documents, and all other particulars, I owe
to my friend, Captain F. W. Lambelle, M.D., R.A.M.C., now stationed in Central
India. All the evidences are open to the most searching investigation, and this
in the interests of scientific truth as well as in those of humanity, is
invited.