CHAPTER II 



ON THE CAUSATION OF CANCEROUS AND OTHER NEW GROWTHS 1 

 (1901) 



JUST as to the bright spirits of the sixteenth century, in the 

 expansion and enthusiasm of the time, everything seemed 

 possible and men dreamt of the perfect commonwealth, so to us 

 in this age of medical renaissance the discoveries that have been 

 made in connexion with the causation and modes of prevention 

 of so many important diseases appear to point to the time when 

 the most dread scourges of humanity shall one after the other 

 be subjugated, and our race rise to a level of physical well-being 

 hitherto beyond the bounds of credence. So it is that, regarding 

 the most awe-inspiring and painful of these scourges, cancer and 

 malignant growths in general, while admitting our complete 

 impotence to deal with these conditions save when we have the 

 good fortune to recognize them at their very onset, we nevertheless, 

 to-day, are not wholly cast down ; rather are we sanguine. If we 

 have discovered the cause of so fatal and widespread a condition 

 as tuberculosis, sooner or later we hope to find a specific cause 

 for cancer. It is, we encourage ourselves, but a question of 

 study and of time. Analogy and the prevailing hopefulness 

 cause us to expect to find some microbic cause, and, being in 

 this frame of mind, we accept gladly each possible indication 

 pointing to the infectious nature of malignant growths. Already, 

 indeed, we seem to be on the very threshold of discoveries rich 

 in relief to suffering humanity. Discover the cause, say we, 

 and then inevitably we must bring the disease under the yoke. 

 Are we justified in taking this position ? Are our studies 



1 Delivered before the Yale University Medical Alumni Association, New 

 Haven, Conn. Reprinted from the British Medical Journal, 1901. 

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