WHAT MEDICINE HAS DONE AND IS DOING FOR THE RACE 447 



damaged, as in rheumatic fever. These chronic rheumatic 

 affections are in large measure due to focal sepsis somewhere 

 in the body, a state of affairs which naturally tends to become 

 more frequent with the passage of years. The prevention 

 of such causes by attention to dental disease and infected 

 tonsils is therefore on the same hnes as in rheumatic fever, 

 but other methods of treatment, such as that at spas and 

 forms of radiant heat and hght, have recently been more 

 widely employed. 



Malignant Disease. While infant mortaHty has fallen in a 

 most remarkable manner, many epidemic and infectious 

 diseases have been controlled, and the average duration of 

 hfe greatly increased, there is much yet to be accomphshed 

 in the conquest of disease. This was shown by the pandemic 

 of influenza in 1918-1919, by the outbreak of encephahtis 

 epidemica, practically a new disease, in 19 17, and by the 

 lack of efficient control over acute poIiomyeHtis, known 

 since 1840. Perhaps the outstanding example is cancer, 

 the mortaHty from which is increasing, though this may 

 in part be due to the survival of a larger number of people, as 

 a result of improved hygienic conditions, to the age when 

 mahgnant disease most commonly occurs. The British figures 

 of the mortaHty from cancer and tuberculosis are instructive 

 in this connection: in 1884 the annual mortaHty rate per 

 miHion persons Hving was 563 for cancer and 2574 for 

 tuberculosis, whereas in 1928 the corresponding figures were 

 1425 for cancer and 755 for tuberculosis. Cancer occurs in 

 aH parts of the world, no country or race is exempt, for the old 

 statements that primitive unciviHzed tribes are not affected 

 were due to want of accurate knowledge; it has been estimated 

 that I out of every 7 persons reaching the age of thirty years 

 win die of cancer. The urgency of the prevention of cancer has 

 led to intensive investigation in special institutions aH over 

 the civiHzed world of the various problems concerned, and an 

 enormous amount of information bearing on its causation, 

 pathology, incidence and statistics has been accumulated; 

 but so far the essential cause has not been indubitably 

 established, and until this much sought for discovery is 

 made, the means of prevention is yet to seek. But although 

 this final fichievement has not been accomplished, the way has 



