104 ILLINOIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
The first of these is excision of the growth by the knife; sec- 
ond, the X-Ray; third, the use of Radium; fourth, the ap- 
plication of heat as devised by the author of this paper. 
In the small growth of cancer the knife, made to cut wide of 
the disease, still holds, in the opinion of many real surgeons, 
the first place. The operation is much quicker, the convalesc- 
ence rapid and the resulting scar much less prominent than by 
any other operative method. The chief danger in the use of 
the knife, as far as the final results are concerned, is always 
the possibility of a small nest of cancer cells outside of the 
main growth being invaded by the knife, and the knife thus in- 
fected with the disease spreads it into new areas. In other 
words, the knife vaccinates the disease into places where it did 
ot exist previously. This is known to surgeons as a process 
of auto-transplantation of the disease. It is this fact, always 
feared by the surgeon, that has given the knife treatment of 
cancer most of its reputation for not curing the disease. But 
the fault usually has been that the surgeon has attempted to 
cure the disease with the knife when it was too far advanced 
to safely avoid this coming in contact with and scattering of 
the cancer cells and inoculating them from the edge of his cold 
steel knife into places where they previously had not existed. 
But in suitable cases the cold steel knife has permanently taken 
away from the cancer victim a serious menace to his life. 
The three remaining methods of treatment are mainly used 
in those cases of cancer on the borderland of operability with 
the knife, or that other great majority of cases which are 
utterly inoperable with the knife. The X-Ray, Radium and 
the heat method will all destroy a cancerous growth utterly if 
the malignant mass is in a situation where the treatment can be 
applied efficiently. Failure of efficient application is the chief 
trouble with all these methods. Radium or X-Ray, even in large 
doses, cannot be made to destroy a large mass of cancer be- 
cause sufficient penetration cannot be obtained. A large mass 
of cancer in the liver cannot be reached by either the X-Ray or 
Radium. This is also true of cancer of the stomach or of the 
abdomen. 
The most efficient method of treating cancer today is by a 
combination of the four methods mentioned above. If the 
knife is used it should be followed by the use of the X-Ray or 
