AucusT 6, 1914] 
NATURE 
597 
typhoid vaccination, and leprosy. Other medical sec- 
tions were those of pharmacological science, medical 
electricity, odontology, chemistry, hygiene, and public 
medicine. 
The geographical section, of which M. Dupont was 
president, had on its programme the subjects of the 
Panama Canal, the Channel Tunnel, and many 
matters of more local interest. 
The French Association may well be congratulated 
on its Havre meeting. 
IMPERIAL CANCER RESEARCH FUND. 
‘io annual meeting of the general committee 
of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund was 
held on July 21, the Duke of Bedford, K.G., presi- 
dent, in the chair. Among those present were Sir 
R. Douglas Powell, Sir Thomas Barlow, Sir Rickman 
Godlee, Sir William Church, Sir W. Watson Cheyne, 
Sir John Tweedy, and Prof. Sims Woodhead. 
Dr. Bashford’s report stated that during the past 
year fewer claims to the possession of a cure for 
cancer had been brought to the notice of the fund. 
In no instance was the information of a kind to 
necessitate further inquiry. None of the alleged 
remedies were new, all having been brought to notice 
in one form or another in earlier years. 
The Two Categories of Transplanted Tumours. 
As a result of the work carried out in the labora- 
tory, it was becoming more and more generally recog- 
nised that transplanted tumours fell into two main 
categories, namely, a very small group which grew 
progressively because they did not produce resist- 
ance to their own growth, and a large group in which 
the tumours tended to disappear spontaneously in 
varying proportions because of the resistance to their 
growth, which was induced in the body as a result 
of their presence; indeed, in extreme cases, every 
animal, as it were, cured itself. The claims to cure 
cancer in mice had without exception been made by 
investigators who had not recognised the latter fact 
with regard to the propagation of tumours, and who 
had been dealing with the latter class of tumours not 
supplied from the laboratory of the fund. The Im- 
perial Cancer Research Laboratories had distributed 
widely a tumour-strain of the former class which grew 
progressively in all animals and produced metastases, 
and these were the tumours which ought to be em- 
ployed for the purposes of therapeutic experiments; 
up to date no successful results had been obtained 
with them. It seemed well to emphasise these facts 
because most, if not all, the transplantable tumours 
in the possession of other investigators did not fully 
reproduce the natural features of cancer, and a large 
number of proprietary preparations, many of them 
metallic and possibly dangerous, were now on the 
market as cures for cancer, on the basis of these 
untrustworthy laboratory experiments. 
Resistance to Growth. 
Further investigations had been conducted into the 
nature of the resistance which, as previously reported, 
can be induced in animals so as to render them 
refractory to the growth of transplanted tumours. 
Advances of a purely technical character have per- 
mitted it to be demonstrated that resistant animals 
possess the power of destroying cancer-cells intro- 
duced into the blood-stream. The question of resist- 
ance to growth is of great etiological importance, 
because it has been shown that when tumours previ- 
ously capable only of transitory growth acquire the 
NO. 2336, VOL. 93] 
| > : ena tn 
| power of progressive growth and of dissemination, 
the result is due to the loss of power to produce 
hindrance to their own growth. 
Abderhalden’s Serum Test. 
Abderhalden claimed that the serum of cancer 
patients had the power of breaking down or digest- 
ing tumour tissue in a test-tube in a way that normal 
serum did not, and by a special technique a colour- 
reaction might be obtained which was held to be 
diagnostic of cancer. The technique had been im- 
proved, and it was now possible to avoid contradictory 
results. It appeared that reliance ought not to be 
placed on this reaction either in pregnancy or in the 
diagnosis of cancer. 
Increase of Cancer in Certain Situations. 
It was quite justifiable to make such a crude state- 
ment as that the number of deaths assigned to cancer 
had increased in 1911 for females to 1088 a million 
living in I91I, as compared with 500 in 1860; and 
for males to 891 from 200 during the same period. It 
was also justifiable to express these facts in another 
way (also crudely), namely, that of women attaining 
the age of thirty-five, 1 in 12 was recorded as dying 
of cancer in 1889, but 1 in 7-4 in 1911; and of men I in 
21 in 1889, but .1 in 9-7 in 1911. But these figures 
ought not to be set out, as they still were, before the 
public without any qualification, and interpreted forth- 
with as a demonstration of the reality of the increase 
of cancer. The increase in the number of deaths was 
not uniform for the different parts of the body, and 
for some parts, notably the uterus, an actual fall was 
persistently evident since 1902. 
Heredity. z. 
There were still no trustworthy data available as re- 
gards cancer in man. In mice hereditary predisposition 
had been shown to exist, sufficient to double the inci- 
dence of cancer in female mice in the ancestry of which 
cancer had occurred not further back than the grand- 
mother, as compared with animals in which the 
cancerous ancestry was more remote. 
Cancer Areas and Cancer Houses. 
“The question of cancer houses had been allowed to 
stand over until experiment and the improvement in 
the collection and tabulation of statistics had advanced 
to a point which made it possible to discuss the sub- 
ject on the basis of positive knowledge. With the 
awakening of interest in the study of cancer in 
animals, the belief in cancer houses was naturally 
transferred to ‘“‘cancer cages,’’ largely on the basis of 
statements made by breeders. The extensive experi- 
ence of the Royal Prussian Institute for Experimental 
Therapeutics agreed with the even larger experience 
of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund under labora- 
tory conditions. Cancer cages, in the sense that 
animals housed in them became infected, were a myth. 
Contact with animals with natural or inoculated 
cancer did not increase the liability to the development 
of the disease. 
A considerable part of the report was devoted to the 
discussion of the question of ‘‘cancer houses.’ Five 
of the best known instances of cancer houses had 
been inquired into and the places visited. Inquiries 
had also been instituted into a sixth area, which had 
also been visited. The investigations into “cancer 
houses”? and ‘‘cancer areas’? accorded with what had 
been established by experiments on animals. ‘‘ Cancer 
houses”? were as much a myth as were “cancer 
cages.” 
