Article May 20, 1905 Issue

Another Theory Abandoned

The following editorial note, which we copy from the Southern Oregonian, again reminds us that material theories regarding disease are constantly changing, and that the accepted beliefs of a few years ago have become the discarded fallacies of to-day.

While Christian Scientists cannot accept even these revised beliefs as the whole truth respecting disease, yet they welcome them in-so-far as they tend to destroy the fear which has so long prevailed in many families and communities.—Ed.

Professor Orth, successor to Virchow in the position of pathologist, who examined the German Kaiser's throat last year, and Professor Hansemann, one of the first authorities in Europe, have declared before the Berlin Medical Society that their investigations permitted them to state positively that cancer was neither contagious nor parasitic. They as serted further, there was absolutely no ground for the belief that cancer is alarmingly increasing, but the apparent increase in the disease is due more to the fact that it oftener discovered nowadays than heretofore. Research has also failed to prove that cancer is epidemic in special places or especially prevalent in certain families through heredity. The public is urged to abandon the theory that the disease is contagious, because it fastens on patients the odium of carrying infection.

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