[Music]
[Parran:] The American people, through their elected representatives in Congress,
have determined to wage unremitting warfare against cancer.
This disease has been on the increase in recent years.
It now ranks second among the causes of death. It is no respecter of persons.
Each of you, wherever you live, whoever you are, must become keenly alive to the peril of cancer.
In the city, on the farm, rich or poor, everyone is a possible cancer victim.
[Narrator:] Like millions of other women, Mary Brown's life revolves around her husband and children,
her church, her club, and her friends.
Like millions of other mothers, love for her children is equaled only by her feeling of responsibility for their welfare.
What if anything happened to her, she has everything to live for, yet how long has she to live?
She feels perfectly healthy, yet is desperately afraid.
She has told no one of her fears, not even her husband, but lurking behind her every act
is the ceaseless ebb and flow of her unspoken worry...it can't be, it is. It can't be. It is.
To go on with the ordinary day-by-day duties and engagements
with this dread always hanging over her.
What else is there to do?
[On a notepad is written Club Meeting 2:30 Tuesday]
She decides to hear a noted doctor speak at the woman's club.
[Speaker:] My subject today is the challenge of cancer.
Cancer is a lawless growth of our own body, a rebellion of the tiny cells of which we're all made.
Each year, in the United States, it destroys nearly three times as many of our people as were killed in the world war.
That is a challenge.
There's a great deal yet to be discovered about cancer.
That is a challenge.
But with our present knowledge and means of treating it, at least a third of those who die of cancer
could be saved if they started treatments early enough.
Fifty thousand needless deaths a year.
That is a challenge.
To fight this rebellion of our tissues, organized forces are marching ahead on three vital fronts.
The first of these is research. Scientific investigation, step by step, one by one,
substances in almost infinite variations are being prepared and tested to see if they cause cancer.
Other substances in equally exhaustive manner are being tested to see if they will cure or help to cure cancer.
Still other tests are continually being made to find means of preventing cancer.
In much of this research, mice and men are partners. Mice are of a similar to human beings
in their physical development, but their whole life span is only three years.
A mouse at the age of one year is as old, from a medical point of view, as a man of forty.
A two-year-old mouse is nearly seventy.
That gives us a shorthand method of studying living cancer.
Mice, whose heredity is better known than that of any racehorse,
are as essential for research as are pure chemicals.
From such experiments, we may assume it's proven that chronic irritation
often influences the appearance of cancer.
The chafing of a jagged tooth, rubbing of a shoe on a mole,
and other forms of continued irritation, internal or external, should be avoided or corrected.
The field for cancer research embraces all the fundamental sciences.
In addition to the army of workers with microscopes in laboratories, for example,
are the latest and in some ways the most formidable weapons of science.
The huge machines for smashing the atom, which are being used in studies of the basic problems of cancer.
To the research workers, therefore, we can look for the future treatment of cancer
and on their findings will depend hundreds of thousands of lives.
New weapons for the war against cancer, new engines for the destruction of malignant cells,
are being developed and tested before going to the soldiers of the treatment front:
the physicians and surgeons and radiologists.
Yet, laboratories are often understaffed, technicians underpaid,
and vital research projects carefully planned are not started because of lack of funds.
Congress has taken a big step forward to cope with this need.
The National Institute of Health at Washington, D.C., headed by Dr. L.R. Thompson,
includes the National Cancer Institute, one of the finest laboratories in the world.
In it, under the direction of Dr. Carl Voegtlin, cooperative research is being carried on along many lines.
Congress also by joint resolution has authorized the President to proclaim one month each year as cancer control month.
of the United States of America the one hundred and sixty-fourth." Followed by handwritten
signature, Franklin D. Roosevelt.]
The second vital front is treatment. The three modern methods of curing cancer, surgery,
surgery, x-rays, and radium, may be used individually or in combination.
The kind of treatment depends on the type and location of the cancer.
Surgical procedure today is an elaborate ritual, with equipment of every sort to protect the patient.
The powerful and invisible x-rays of a two hundred and fifty thousand volt machine
are given off when the current passes through a vacuum.
The administration of these powerful rays is not only supervised by trained physicians,
but the patient's safety is further assured by automatic controlled features.
Recently developed million-volt machines have been installed at certain hospitals
and are being used in experiments in super voltage x-ray treatments.
The third treatment weapon in the war on cancer is radium,
a precious metal costing twenty-five thousand dollars a gram.
Now this bottle contains eleven ounces of ordinary sand, an amount equal to all the radium in the United States.
To protect those who work with it, radium is stored in special containers,
whose thick walls prevent its rays from escaping.
In treatment, radium may be applied in several different ways.
For example, it may be loaded into a so-called applicator.
The applicator in turn is placed in a ponderous lead conveyor for transfer to the treatment room.
Or it may be enclosed in a massive bomb from which its rays are directed and controlled
at an accurately measured distance from the patient.
[Music]
Another way in which radium is used to treat cancer is by means of a gas, which emanates from it.
This is called radon and it's pumped off by an ingenious method.
The mercury forces the gas ahead of it and into minute tubes of glass or gold.
These tubes are fused as they are cut, thus capturing the radon
so that it can be implanted in effective form directly in the cancer itself.
Throughout the country, the three recognized methods of treating cancer—surgery, x-rays, and radium—
can found in more than three hundred cancer clinics which are approved
by the rigid standards of the American College of Surgeons.
The disease is also treated effectively in some centers without approved clinics.
Unfortunately, all three methods of treatment are expensive and the equipment required is not found everywhere.
But steps are being taken to make treatment facilities available to more of our people.
Cancer is not contagious. It is no more a disgrace than a broken ankle.
Many cases of cancer and of pre-cancerous conditions can be treated by having the patients
come to a cancer clinic periodically, thus receiving treatment with the least interference
with their work or other activities.
It is less dangerous today than it ever has been to have cancer.
Tens of thousands of persons are alive and well years after they have had the disease.
Some of these people have formed a cured cancer club.
Why then, you ask, is not everyone cured? The answer is simple.
Taken in time, a local cancer is curable. Untreated, it will spread throughout the body and become incurable.
The best insurance against cancer is a complete physical examination once a year
and alertness for the cancer danger signals.
Watch for them.
Any sore that does not heal, particularly about the tongue, mouth, or lips.
Persistent hoarseness that lasts longer than two weeks.
Any persistent lump or thickening, especially in the breast.
Persistent indigestion developing suddenly in middle life.
Any irregular bleeding or discharge from any body opening.
Sudden changes in the form or rate of growth of a mole or wart.
Thus, education is the third big front in the war against cancer.
Brilliant young scientists and physicians preparing to go to towns and counties where there are no experts
are studying on fellowships granted by the Rockefeller Foundation and by the United States Public Health Service.
State health departments, and state medical societies too, are doing valuable work
in providing general physicians with the latest material on cancer controls.
Public meetings arranged by leaders in the war against cancer
are being held throughout the country under the auspices of the
Woman's Field Army of the American Society for the Control of Cancer.
Through these meetings and by other educational efforts, the truth about cancer is presented
to the people. And the truth is, cancer is curable when taken in time.
To you who say with me, I choose to live, I say, remember that early cancer can be cured.
Don't take a chance with cancer. Don't waste time with worry. Don't delay.
[Mary Brown:] Do I have cancer? You must know after that examination.
[Doctor:] We must be very thorough, Mary.
[Mary Brown:] It's been such a relief to tell someone what I was afraid of.
[Doctor:] Well, that's what physicians are for.
So many tragedies occur when people are afraid to even go to the doctor.
[Mary Brown:] If it hadn't been for that meeting, I never should have had courage to come here.
[Doctor:] Well, I'm glad you didn't delay.
It's heartbreaking when people with cancer come to us too late.
[Mary Brown:] Do I have it, I'm not afraid now.
[Doctor:] Mary, I can't tell you yet.
I'm going to ask you to go to the hospital tomorrow and then we'll know.
[Mary Brown:] I see.
[Narrator:] Tomorrow finds Mrs. Brown in the hospital where experts from many different
fields of medicine are helping fight her battle.
To the nearby laboratory comes a small lump of tissue just removed from Mrs. Brown's breast.
Is it cancer? Here in this division of intelligence of one of the fronts of the war against cancer,
the answer will be found.
For microscopic examination, the tissue is swiftly frozen, so that it can be sliced to
a thinness of two-thousandths of an inch, stained, washed, and mounted on a slide.
The final decision rests with the pathologist,
who through years of training can judge the complicated formation of the cells.
Thus in a very brief time after the patient has been given an anesthetic, a diagnosis is made.
He says carcinoma, cancer. Back to the operating room goes the word.
A skilled team of surgeons and nurses swings into action.
In a little while the patient is ready to leave the hospital. Mrs. Brown is going home.
Her cancer was an early one and the prompt operation saved her life.
In a few weeks, she will return for a course of x-ray treatments, and later will report to her physician
for regular follow-up examinations, even though there is every reason to believe she has been cured.
She is another of the thousands who learn each year that early cancer is curable.
With what grateful sincerity, she enlists in the Women's Field Army,
that she may give to others the password, choose to live.
Thus playing a part in the work of the American Society for the Control of Cancer, whose director, Dr. C.C. Little, says...
[Little:] Cancer challenges every man and woman.
It is a test of our civilization's ability to organize for health and happiness.
We must meet this disease with the resolution "I choose to live," and to help others to live.
I will fight cancer in my own life and wherever I may meet it.
[Music]