In regard to the medicinal treatment of cancer it is difficult to be clear and definite, and yet concise within the limits allowed for a lecture. For, as you may imagine from what has been said in these and the previous course of lectures two years ago, there is no one remedy or even any single course of treatment which is to be invariably followed or is always successful in every case of cancer.
In a disease of such uncertainty as to its definite causation, and of such obstinacy and duration from its first inception, the remedies which may be required in different cases are as varied as are the peculiarities of the individual. The treatment requires the utmost diligence and solicitous care and attention to details on the part of both the physician and patient, and over a period of time which it may be difficult to secure. This is rather a different proposition from that of a relatively brief surgical operation, after which the patient is dismissed with the hope that the disease will not recur!
Patience and perseverance, with medical acumen, are the first requisites-but before this there must be a belief and confidence in the truth of the statements, the correctness of the theory, and the value of the method to be employed; with this there must also be an optimism on the part of the physician which begets a confidence in the patient, which will do much toward reaching the desired result. Unless much time, thought, study, and effort can be given to each case of cancer, I should deprecate any attempt to treat it medically, and rather risk at once the chances of surgery, poor as they are. It was for fear of harm following an incomplete understanding of, and an imperfect or careless carrying out of the line of practise which I had pursued satisfactorily for thirty years and more that I hesitated and delayed so long before urging it generally. But the steady rise in mortality under the ordinarily accepted treatment has impelled me to strive to make clear what I conceive to be the correct view of its nature and cause, and the approximately correct treatment of cancer.
From what has preceded in these and former lectures it will be seen at once that rational and right internal treatment must proceed and continue along the lines previously indicated relating to the biochemistry of cancer. Some tissue cells have taken on wrong and rampant action, of a reproductive character, owing to an erroneous metabolism, which has induced a deranged or disordered blood current, and some measures are to be devised and carried out to restore the bodily functions to a normal state.