Part 52

“No.”

“But a fair proportion of the more recent ones have?”

“Yes.”

“All these were operated on, weren’t they?”

“Yes; I believe they were. But not all that were operated on lived.”

“Did a single one of those not operated on live?”

“Not so far as I can remember.”

“Well, there we have the truth about cancer in a few words; or, anyway, a good part of the truth. Up to twenty years ago or so, cancer was practically incurable. It always returned after operation. That was because the surgeon thought he needed only to cut out the cancer. Now he knows better; he knows that he must cut out all the tissue and the glands around the obvious cancer, and thus get the root of the growth out of the system.”

“And that cures?” asked Mrs. Clyde.

“In a great majority of cases, if it is done early enough.” The Health Master dropped his book and beat time with an emphatic forefinger to his concluding words.

“But Agnes Westerly’s is cancer of the breast,” said Mrs. Clyde, as if that clinched the case against the patient.

“Just about the most favorable locality.”

“I thought it was the worst.”

“Where on earth do intelligent women collect their superstitions about cancer?” cried Dr. Strong. “Carcinoma of the breast is the commonest form among women, and the easiest to handle. Show me a case in the first stages and, with a good surgical hospital at hand, I’d almost guarantee recovery. It’s simply a question of removing the entire breast, and sometimes the adjacent glands. Ninety per cent of the early cases should get well.”

“But the operation itself is so terrible,” shuddered Mrs. Clyde.

“Terrible? Unpleasant, I’ll admit. But if you mean terrible in the sense of dangerous, or even serious, you’re far wrong again. The percentage of mortality from the operation itself is negligible. But the percentage of mortality without operation is 100 out of 100. So the choice is an easy one.”

“They seem to hold out little hope for Agnes Westerly.”

“Let’s hear about the circumstances,” suggested Dr. Strong.

“About two years ago—”

“That’s a bad beginning,” interrupted the physician, shaking his head.

“—She noticed a small lump in her right breast. It didn’t trouble her much—”

“It seldom does at the start.”

“—And she didn’t want to alarm her husband; so she said nothing about it. It kept getting a little larger very slowly, but there was no outside sore; so she thought it couldn’t be serious. If it were, she thought, it would pain her.”

“That fatal mistake! Pain is a late symptom in cancer—usually too late.”

“It was curious the way she finally came to find out. She read an advertisement in the paper, headed, ‘Any Lump in Woman’s Breast is Cancer.’”

“Yes; I know that advertisement. It’s put out by a scoundrel named Chamlee. Surely, she didn’t try his torturing treatment?”

“Oh, no. Agnes is too intelligent for that. But it frightened her into going to her doctor. He told her that a radical operation was her only chance. She was terribly frightened,—more afraid of the knife than of the disease, she told me,—and she insisted on delay until the pain grew intolerable. And now, they say, there’s only a slight chance. Isn’t it pitiful?”

“Pitiful, and typical. Mrs. Westerly, if she dies, is a type of suicide, the suicide of fear and ignorance. Two years’ waiting! And every day subtracting from her chance. That’s the curse of cancer; that people won’t understand the vital necessity of promptness.”