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Show JY by Corey W. Grua J Public Info. Chaliman, CtJlntah Co. Unit Amer. Cancer Socr The killer: then and now QUESTION: Is cancer a relatively recent disease? ANSWER: No. We can dust off a history book from the time of Hippocratesabout Hip-pocratesabout 400 B.C. Cancer is mentioned for the first time here. It took centuries for any real progress to be made in the fight against the disease. In the late 1930's medical science was able to actually cure one out of five patients. Then it took only another ten years of progress to cure one in four cases. 1979 figures indicate that one out of every three cancer victims will be able to say they "were" .- victims. With that kind of odds you could comment about the marvelous age we live in, but then there is one more statistic. Every other person that is diagnosed as having cancer could be completely cured today, if the disease were detected early and treated promptly. What does the future hold? Probably an effective cure for most kinds of cancer and probably increased effort by the American Cancer Society to provide effective education about cancer so that it may be avoided or quickly cured if it is diagnosed. Remember the slogan we used several years ago that urged everyone to "fight cancer with a checkup and a check?" Much of today's achievement is the result of our having taken that slogan seriously. |
