264 STUDIES IN ELECTRO-PHYSIOLOGY 



in obscurity. Cancer has yielded nothing to bacteriological 

 research. Surgery cannot claim that the knife is an 

 infallible cure, because the surgeon can never be sure that 

 he has removed the entire growth ; electro-cautery has 

 proved to be merely useful, and medicine has not been 

 able to provide more than temporary relief from pain. 

 From galvanometric research also nothing decisive has been 

 learned, but I am encouraged to think that this is because 

 the opportunities of observation and study have been too 

 few in number, and that the little we have gained will at 

 all events stimulate other workers to renewed investiga- 

 tion upon the lines I have ventured to lay down. 



Of cases of suspected cancer I have tested many, but of 

 cancer certified to by high medical authority not more than 

 half a dozen. This, it may be thought, does not warrant 

 me in coming to any definite conclusion as to the electro- 

 pathology of this disease, but if I disagree it is because in 

 all those six cases not only did I find the cancer cells to be 

 non-conducting, but my observations have been borne out 

 by others. 



From a cancerous growth, more especially if it is not 

 deep-seated, no deflection whatever will be obtained, 

 even if the skin be moistened, although the secondary 

 deposits may exhibit lines of acute inflammation. The 

 only means of alleviation or cure suggested by galvano- 

 metric research do not, so far, go beyond restoring con- 

 ductivity to the deionised cells by suitable ionic medication, 

 but the galvanometer should provide valuable assistance 

 to the operating surgeon by enabling an accurate diagram 

 of the whole of the affected area to be drawn upon the skin. 

 The disease, as we know, frequently recurs because com- 

 plete excision has not been made. 



