Cancer Volunteers

One afternoon in Philadelphia last week the small, neat auditorium of Woman's Medical College was abuzz with 500 stenographers, teachers, socialites and charwomen, members of the first group that ever banded together specifically to ward off cancer in their own bodies. Last year Woman's Medical College, only institution of its kind in the U. S.,* got $2,400 from the American Medical Association.

Purpose of the grant: to start 1,200 healthy women volunteers on a five-year course of free, thorough, semiannual pelvic examinations, to detect any signs of early cancer of the uterus.

Handsome, persuasive Dr. Catharine Macfarlane, only woman professor of gynecology in the country, heads the group of women doctors who examine the volunteers. Last week Dr. Macfarlane proudly summed up the first year's accomplishments of the Cancer Research Volunteers' Clinic.

Said she: "Unhealthy conditions, such as ulceration or inflammation which might lead to cancer, were found in about 25% of the volunteers. . . . Thus far, unsuspected early cancer has been found in four of the volunteers. These women have received adequate treatment, by operation . . . radium and Xray. I believe three of these women will be permanently cured. I am not so sure about the fourth."

Happy at having saved three lives, Dr. Macfarlane predicted that, if all women over 30 would follow the example of the 1,200 volunteers and demand complete periodic pelvic examinations, the "appalling death rate" (15,000) from cancer of the uterus would be greatly lowered.

* Headed by famed Surgeon Chevalier Jackson, Woman's Medical College was founded in 1850, has graduated over 1,600 women doctors --general practitioners, gynecologists, pediatricians, institution and research workers.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.