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                                                               INTRODUCTION                                                       41

 

natural phenomena. Lastly, cancer, with all its malig­nancy—a thing which laughs to scorn the impotence of the surgeon’s knife, which yearly claims its thousands upon thousands of human victims*---is at its scientific basis only a maleficent natural phenomenon, such as these. We come into being and exist as human beings because of beneficent natural phenomena, and as human beings we continue, for a span of time, to subsist, in spite of maleficent natural phenomena. The course of some natural phenomena is unalterable by human agency; others, again, by a knowledge of the workings of Nature, of science, can have their maleficent action stemmed and averted; and, as a scientific man, I affirm that cancer belongs to the category of these.

To those, surgeons and others, who have not, like the writer, foolishly devoted their lives to scientific research and experiment, but wisely to more mundane pursuits— such as the acquirement of wealth—let the following warnings be uttered: “ If you wish to set up what you term ‘ test cases,’ pray let them be such as shall fulfil in every way the requirements of science. Do not vitiate your experiments from the very start, as has happened, by choosing some 66 per cent. of the cases, in which there lay the pernicious ‘error of experiment’ of previous surgical operation, once or several times over. Remember also that if your cases be chosen rightly—that is, scien­tifically—even then there remain the reagents employed, and how used. Do not forget that in this, as in every scientific chemical experiment, the observer must not only satisfy himself regarding his reagents, but be prepared,

 

 

* On the basis of the present population of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (45,000,000), the tribute exacted by malignant disease in a single century would be not less than 3,875,000 human lives, or over 100 daily; for India 27 millions.

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