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HOW THE UNSKILLFUL REMOVAL OF A JVEOLE MAY CAUSE CANCER.
The Hap-hazard Practitioner Examinee
the Mole She Thlnka Spoils
Her Beauty.
With the Electric Needle He Burn* the I She Regards Her New “Unblemished”
Mole All Away as He | '’’ace with Happiness, Her
Thinks. Vanity Appeased.
But Mlcrosoplc Portions of the Mole Each of the Irritated Portions Left Is a
Have Been Left Behind and s Potential Cancer and Often Be-
Inflammation Begins. j comes Positive.
At Last, at the Skilled Practitioner’s^
Hands, an Operation Is Necessary
and Beauty Goes Forever.
Medical Science
Ascribes the
Increasing
.Prevalence of the
Disease Among
Women to Their
Increased Devotion
to Foolish Fashions and Their
Desire to Be More
“Beautiful” Than Nature
Intended Them to Be
By John B. Huber, M. D.
W C are going, In this article, to con
sider the latest medical discov
eries establishing the vanity ol
women as one ot the most prolific
i
causes of cancer.
There Is the vanity tha tleads her to
have moles, warts and superfluous hair
removed from her face by other than
skilful surgeons and which leads, In a
way to be made plain, to cancer of the
face.
I There Is the vanity that leads her to
tight-fitting shoes which, through the
strain upon the leg muscles, leads to the
displacement and Irritation of abdominal
organs and oftentimes cancer having Its
cause In the displacement and Irritation.
There Is the vanity of too tight-fitting
corsets that leads to cancer of the
breast.
| There Is the vanity of the«high, tight-
fitting collars that by pressing upon the
neck glands often cause them to become
cancerous.
There Is the vanity of the pince-nez
that leads to cancer of the nose when
the more homely but comfortable spec
tacles would not.
There is. finally, the vanity of poison
ous cosmetics, to which cancers of the
lips have recently been traced.
Tc these vanities, which have grown
amazingly upon women both old and
young within the last few years, must
be ascribed the astounding increase In
cancer cases that the medical journals
report. In order that the matter, so Im
portant to women, may be thoroughly
understood by them, I will begin with a
general consideration of the established
facts about cancer as we know them up
to the moment.
We, most of us, know by now what a
dreadful disease cancer Is: that It comes
after only consumption and pneumonia
on our mortality lists; that one in every
eight of our women, and one in every
eleven of our men dtes of It; that women
suffer more than men, because the dis
ease attacks In women the tissues and
organs peculiar to their sex: that, ex-
icept as will lie stated, the majority of Its
victims are between thirty and old age,
dying mostly between forty-five and
sixty-five; that there are eighty thousand
rancer deaths annually in our country;
that when the disease Is fully established,
when the crab—for that's what the word
cancer means—has fastened its clawB In
to the deeper tissues and organs of the
body, there is practically no hope of life;
that then even the knife is unsuccessful,
because for success and cure not only
the body of the cancer (which forms the
malignant tumor) but also every one of
Us offshoots, its claws, must be removed,
and that if any one of these claws has
Invaded parts remote from the main can
cerous growth, parts which the surgeon
cannot reach, the cure cannot be assured.
If any such cancerous material re
mains there will, with very few excep
tions, be recurrences months or years
afterward, -with practically no hope of
permanent or positive cure in the pres
ent state of medical knowledge and ex-
8
perience. I know that every now and
then we get reports of complete cures
by means other than the knife—drugs,
chemicals, serums, vaccines, arsenic,
radium and so on.
But it is the solemnest duty of the re
sponsible physician, in view of the grav
ity of the cancer situation, to warn the
people that none of these means has yet
been scientifically proven; nor have any
of them stood the necessary tests of
time and of exhaustive in
vestigation by the colleges
and the physicians who have
advanced them
Cancer is indeed curable
by the knife in many cases.
What is the percentage of
such curse? Illustrious sur
geons have demonstrated
eighty per cent of cures—
when the disease has been
taken in time. Operation not
early and with extension,
that is, by the lymph and
blood channels to other
parts of the body than the
original seat of the disease,
has given fifty per cent of
cures. But when complete
removal is not possible there
will be recurrences and no
absolute cure. What is then
to be done?
The wisest thing is to
realize the nature of the “pre-
cancerous" stage, that is to
say, the condition of the
body when it is predisposed,
-when it is easy for cancer
to develop in the body. It is
by recognizing this pre-
cancerous stage in time that
forty thousand precious lives
can annually be saved in the
United States from this most
dreadful malady.
Practically all cancers
have a pre-cancerous stage
that ought to have been
detected, and would most likely have been
detected if people had gone to their doc
tors as soon as they were noticed. '‘Be
nign” tumors, not in themselves danger
ous to life; lumps, prolonged irritation,
disturbance of function through years;
chronic ulceration, as of the stomach: in
flammations. injuries; scars and stumps
from old operations; such are conditions
Which must be feared as leading to can
cer.
Cancer is always a tumor, a swelling,
a “lump." as many people say. But to
the doctor any kind of sw-elling — and
there are at least a score of them—is a
tumor, not necessarily cancerous. Also
there are several kinds of cancer, differ
ing in the degree of their malignancy
and in their course. Superficial cancers.
«s those of the lip or other parts of the
face, are reasonably recognizable by
sight and touch and by a microscopic
examination. Immediately such a thing
appears medical examination must be
had. Of course such things may not be
cancerous. And if they are not. the best
medical advice should be secured as to
what should be done with them. Deep-
seated cancers are much more difficult
to detect; oftentimes the only indication
of them is a functional disturbance of the
Diagram Snowing
How High Heels
Strain the Leg
Muscles Produc
ing Strains Upon
the Abdominal
Organs, and the
Same Muscles in
Normal Position.
organ or tissue involved or perhaps, also
of other and associated organs. There
fore those after forty, especially women,
and certainly those after forty who find
their health not as it should be. or had
been, should go without delay for a medi
cal examination.
Irritation, prolonged through months
and years, all too often leads to a cancer
at the site of the irritation. Thus there
is the clay pipe cancer; there used to be
the chimney sweeps cancer; there is
that of the tongue from the jagged end of
an untreated tooth; the laryngeal cancer,
from the inveterate smoking of strong
tobacco; the cancer from X-ray burns
(how long the list of medical martyrs
who have suffered thus); the cancer from
prolonged exposure to the sun; that from
insect bites or intestinal parasites; that
from betel-nut chewing in India; from
eating very hot rice, in China; the kankri
cancer in Thibet. (The natives carry In
their tunic a pocket stove, the kankri,
the constant use of which is followed by
cancer at the site of the burn.)
Prolonged disturbance of function not
amenable to ordinary treatment should
excite suspicion that has imperatively to
be dissipated; especially is' this so of the
digestive apparatus. Function and struc-
*The habit of
treating
moles or
warts with a
caustic pencil
produces,
through
irritation, a
cancerous
growth.”
ture are as inseparable as mind and mat
ter; abnormal functioning must inevit
ably lead to diseased structure. Anemia
nausea, indigestion, loss of appetite, of
w-eight, strength and stamina, jaundice,
bleeding from the stomach or other or
gans, uneasiness, pain and tenderness on
pressure below the breastplate—such
things should excite apprehension that
has to be removed. Gastric pain has
been considered to indicate cancer, and
its absence to remove the occasion of
fear. But here were a broken reed to
rely on, for even advanced cancers have
given no pain.
These warnings must be emphasized
for men after forty who have been alco
holics or habitual eaters of irritating, in
digestible and superabundant food. And
the most heartrending cancer cases are
those of women who have neglected the
warnings given by discomfort and func
tional disturbance.
Now, what we want especially to em
phasize is, that most cancers are the re
sult of a pre-cancerous state plus irri
tation—local irritation, either very
severe and all
at once, acute;
or constant,
chronic Irritation,
^nduring through
fears. And I want to
dwell here on how- can
cers come about
through injudicious hand
ling, in beauty parlors and
by inexpert beauty doctors,
who are often as ignorant,
perhaps more so,! of the na
ture of cancer aid of the
dangers they are menacing
their patrons with as are
those patrons themselves, of
the nature of cancer—of
handling by such men of
moles, birth marks, warty
growths and so on. I
am going to show how such handling has
oftentimes resulted in fatal cancer; how
the mournful history of that disease
eems with cases begun in those parlors.
Who has not known that moles which
do not feel sore or tender and give no
physical trouble should be left severely
alone, because of the danger of cancer
from irritating them or unskillfully try
ing to remove them? And yet, women,
imagining these moles to be disfiguring
and unsightly, will not rest till they have
them removed, and by men as fit for the
work as they are to talk Sanskrit.
Nor am I here a blind defender of my
own profession. There are graduated,
licensed doctors who have not had the
sense to let alone harmless birth marks,
who have operated so unskillfully that
they have not removed all of the warty
growth, whose interfering operation has
served only to irritate the tissues and
the skin at the site of the operation, and
to incite the part they did not remove,
to cancer growth.
A diagram accompanies this writing
which shows very well what I mean. You
see what growth has been removed—
mostly but not all: the inexpert or ig
norant operator has removed such of the
growth as was visible to his naked eye.
But note also, how he did not remove
that microscopic remainder, which nas
played the part of the flame to light up
the dreadful disease.
Of course it is well for moles and the
like, which have .been irritated, to be re
moved. In fact any sore that will not
heal rapidly; or any wart or mole that
suddenly begins to grow rapidly; or any
growth that shows swelling, inflamma
tion and redness and is painful has got
to be attended to. But only by doctors
and surgeons of tried skill and experi
ence. And any mole or other growth,
especially on the face and neck, that is
reposing peacefully in or on the skin and
gives no indication of irritatior* or in-
flamation had far best be' left alone.
Moles, as they appear on the cheeks,
eyelids or neck, are of various kinds.
There is the port wine mole, flat, not
raised from the surface. Such a mole,
even if it be considerable in area, Is not
at all unsightly
Then there are those birth marks
which doctors call angiomas—that is,
blood vessel moles through which tiny
blood vessels course, as pretty, if you will
only look at them aright, as the markings
In a rose leaf. And there are black or
red moles, raised from the face, varying
from smooth to rough and warty in ap
pearance; and then there are the hairy,
moles. It is these raised, warty and
hairy moles that are the most dange-iurf
to irritate or to operate on.
Wha{ means does the beauty doctor
employ to “beautify” his foolish clients?
He may do electrolysis, that is, drive
needles into the mole and then send an
electric current down through those
needles, thus destroying perhaps the
larger part of the growth, which then
sloughs off, but almost never the whole.
What he has done, then, has been to
leave an unsightly scar and to have irri
tated and inflamed the tissues that were
before his fell work giving no trouble,j
cancer be likely to develop, not in
weeks, perhaps, not in months, but all
too often in a year or two.
Or the beauty doctor mav elect to use
carbon dioxide snow or perhaps liquid
air (at the temperaturt of 130 degrees
below the freezing point), and if his
treatment has not resulted in a hideous
scar, it has left as unsightly an area of
parchment skin not nearly, to say the
least, as becoming as the mole was. And
being like as not unskillful, not knowing
how long to apply tht agent, or the
amount of pressure to exert—what cruel
cancer development has not gone on un
der that surface, in the seat of that ope
ration!
Or the beauty doctor may “try his
‘prentice hand” with the X-rays or with
radium, regarding which practise I may
as well admit that, even in the practise
of able surgeons, undue exposure to ,
these agencies have been the forerunner*
of all too many cancer deaths.
Then there is that saddest of all femi
nine maladies—cancer of the breast.
What surgeon of practice could not tell
cases the most melancholy in all the
history of his profession, of operations
involving fearful mutilations, and then all
too ineffective—the narrative of which
must be spared the reader. How often is
the tight fitting, irritating corset respon
sible for such cancers. And how many an
internal cancer, of the liver, the stomach,
of the organs peculiar to women, is due
to such insensate friction.
Another vagary of fashion is the boned
collar, which is certainly irritating to the
eye of human masculinity, but far more
so to the necks of the wearers, with pos- t t
Aible dire consequences, such as we have 1
dwelt on.
And high-heeled, tight shoes. There
are medical records of cases of cancer of
the foot following blood blisters caused
by tight footwear. ' ♦
And those pince-nez. Cases of cancer
have resulted from the irritation thus
caused. Fashion again, and yet what can
be more comely than the snug-fitting
spectacles our mothers used to wear?
But the things our mothers used to
wear and do are not suitable to tbeir
daughters. Is here to be found the reason
for our enormously increased cancer
mortality among women? Is here the
reason why, while all parts of the body
have shared in the cancer increase, the
rate for skin cancer has been much
higher than for the internal organs? Is
this the reason why there has been a 50
per cent increase in the mortality from
skin cancer in the last ten years? Is this
the reason why, although I have stated
that cancer has been a disease of middle#
life, a great many jancers are now found
In women as young as eighteen years?
A
Read Your Children’s Character in Their Lead Pencils
YOUNG child is just a bundle of
uncorrelated forces, nothing
more, nothing less, and the one
who expects little children to act as
sages or saints is apt to receive a severe
shock at times. For, in addition to
"trailing clouds of glory,” the child
brings with him the' uncut stones and
the unhewn timbers, which in days to
come may be built into a splendid tem
ple of character—or the reverse.
And no person has such an opportun
ity of studying the child in relation to
Copyright, IS 1a, fcv tk* Biahta B»- •*
his different traits, as the school teacher.
If teachers are in the least observant,
they can determine just what sort of
man or woman the boy or girl will be
come, by watching this picture play
daily unreeled before them, whether in
the way they do their work in the school
room, or play their games in the school
yard.
But in no way does the child reveal
his traits more than in the way he
sharpens his lead pencil. Here is seen
whether he is impulsive, destructive,
wasteful, impatient, criminal or easy go
ing; artistic, considerate, economical,
thoughtful or carefuL
The child who gouges out great pieces
from the sides of his pencil, shofrs im
pulsiveness and generosity. If he breaks
off a chunk with his finger nails, he
shows destructiveness and an utter dis
regard of the feelings and rights ot
others. Should he smooth his pencil
down to a long point, he shows an artis
tic temperament and a considerate dis
position. If he cuts his pencil off in a
stub, he shows economy, carefulness and
quickness.
In fact, the way children sharpen their
pencils is a very clear indication of what
sort of men and women they are likely
to be.
V. aai