Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 April 1919 — CANCER HAS VARIOUS ORIGIN [ARTICLE]

CANCER HAS VARIOUS ORIGIN

Peculiar Customs, It Has Been Proved, Are Frequently Cause of Terrlrible Disease. In parts of China where the head Is shaved by public barbers the razors used are often dull and full of nicks, and the irritation of this scraping often causes cancer. Chinese men suffer from cancer of the pharynx and esophagus due to their habit of eating very hot rice, which is thrown into the mouth forcibly with chop sticks. Chinese women eat after their lords and masters, when the rice is cold, and they never have this kind of cancer. In India much cancer is caused by the chewing of betel nuts. In Kurdistan, India, the natives wear baskets filled with hot coals across their abdomens to protect them from the cold, and more than 50 per cent of all the cancer in that region forms in the abdomen and groin, while in other countries such cancers are very rare.— Major W. J. Mayo, war department lectures.