430 THE NEW ZEALAND FAMILY HERB DOOTLOR, 
EPITHELIOMA. 
It begins on the skin, as one or more pale-red or yellow- 
ish-white and hard waxy nodules (small lumps), which 
ultimately degenerate into ulcers. There is a form of this 
called 
RODENT ULCER, 
Which is most frequently seen on the upper part of the face, 
having a tendency to eat into the flesh. Of course there is a 
certain amount of obscurity as to the causes of this dreaded 
malady. Heredity has not been well established, as it 
develops for the first time in families which, as far as it is 
possible to know, never knew it. Then again the victims of 
it have had children, grand and great-grand, who never 
developed cancer. 
An American doctor, writing in one of the leading Medical 
Journals, says that one of its chief causes is mercurial 
drugging. He recalls the history of several families to prove 
this, showing that after a course of such physicking cancer 
made its appearance. We are convinced that he was right. 
It has often been known to result from blows, wounds, &c. 
One of the worst we ever saw was caused by a jag from a 
whin. What may be called the pathological cause is the 
abnormal multiplication of cells at the cancer spot. It has 
not been decided amongst scientists that these cells are 
different from the ordinary ones of the body, but they multiply 
so fast as to crowd out the vessels which supply nutriment, and, 
as a result, the tumour dies and corrupts away. 
The first form, Scirrhus, is the most common, so much so 
that it is the only one that many of the writers mention. As 
we remarked before, that the knife so commonly used is the 
‘only treatment that the average medical doctor considers 
worth thinking about, the proverb that experience teaches a 
certain class does not seem to fit here, for it has been proved 
Over and over agdin that excision does not cure but rather 
increases the mischief. Dr. Monro, of Edinburgh and 
Aberdeen, says that of 60 cases of operation for cancer only 
