Treatment

The treatment of cancer has always been extremely unsatisfactory. Various remedies have from time to time been heralded as cures, but after thorough trial have in every instance been discarded. Among these are: Chian turpentine; Resorcin; Interparenchymatous injection of ozone-water; Chronic acid; Condurango bark, etc. Galvanism has been highly recommended, as has also the inoculation of the cancer with erysipelas.

Occasionally, cures of cancer by the administration of homoeopathic remedies have been recorded, but the cases are so few, and the possibilities of error in diagnosis so many, that the value of these remedies in the treatment of this disease cannot but be called into question. There are many tumors, the result of acute or chronic inflammatory action, which resemble very closely some of the forms of cancer. Many of these are amenable to the properly selected remedy, and it is cases of this character that have been cured by the remedy recorded. That no remedy has been discovered which is absolutely specific to the disease there can be no reason to doubt, but that remedies are of no value in the treatment of the disease cannot be so positively asserted. Whatever doubts may arise as to the value of remedies in overcoming the disease when once aroused, there can be none as to service rendered by remedies in retarding the development of the disease and in relieving many of the accompanying symptoms. At the close of this article will be found the remedies employed in the treatment of cancer.

While remedies are of value in relieving many of the attendant symptoms of cancer, and are often curative in ulcerations and indurations resembling cancer, at the present day surgery offers the only possibility of a radical cure. In certain forms of cancer in which involvement of the lymphatics does not occur until late in the progress of the disease, the possibility of cure following an operation is always greater than in those in which lymphatic involvement is early noticed.


Epitheliomas of the lower lip are quite amenable to treatment, the thorough removal of the tumor before the submaxillary gland becomes involved being, in many instances, followed by cure. Even in the more rapid and malignant scirrhous and encephaloid tumor, thorough removal gives a percentage of cures sufficiently large to encourage the belief that early and radical measures will succeed in materially reducing the mortality of the disease.

The removal of the disease, if it does not succeed in effecting a cure, is still a great benefit to the patient. A careful study of the statistics shows that the average duration of life is increased twelve months in cases operated upon over those in which the disease proceeds unmolested by surgical measures. The increase in life in some cases is several years. Even if this hope cannot be entertained, an operation is often justifiable on the ground that it will avert the suffering attendant upon the regular progress of the disease. The relief which follows an operation is sometimes remarkable. Freed of the local pain and offensive discharge, the patient will become cheerful, sleep, eat, and even gain in flesh.


In those cases in which an operation is not advisable, much relief from pain and offensive odor many be obtained by the use of certain applications. The best of these is hydrochlorate of Cocaine. Painting the ulcerated surface with a two-to-four per cent, solution affords instant relief. When the discharge is profuse and offensive, the ulcer should be washed frequently with a strong solution of carbolic acid. Hyposulphite of soda may be used when other disinfectants fail. The surface of the ulcer is washed with a saturated solution added to an equal quantity of water, and lint steeped in the solution is laid upon it. The distressing night-sweats of the later stages of the disease may be controlled or improved by the use of aromatic sulphuric acid or aromatic vinegar. At this time also the use of morphine to allay pain and to secure sleep is permissible. It is best given by hypodermic injection.