[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] S IR, —I have read with
interest the paragraph under the heading " News of the Week " in your issue of July 21st,
on the subject of the discoveries by Drs. Murphy and Leitch in connexion with cancer research. It may interest you, and some of your readers, .to know that a similar discovery was made as far back as 1900 by Surgeon McFeely, then practising in Dublin, and at the time senior surgeon to Mercer's Hospital. He is now living in retirement at Wootton,
near Liverpool. It is therefore not new. The matter was referred to (I think) in a paper on the subject of cancer treatment read by him at the meeting of the British Medical Association held at Manchester in (I think) August, 1901. The paper was subsequently published in the British Medical Journal and other medical periodicals. The paper caused quite " a stir " at the time in medical and surgical circles. Has the treatment he then advocated and had previously tried with success ever been persevered with ? ,I fear not.
Unfortunately, like many other pioneers in the cause of medical research, he has received neither credit, financial benefit nor encouragement to continue research work on this subject. Many other alleged " remedies " have been given an extended trial and proved failures, though much time and money has been expended on " cancer research." Little, if any, progress seems to have been made. My state- ments can be verified by reference to the British Medical Association, who had cause, either just prior to or during the late European War, to refute a claim by an American doctor to the discovery of the treatment advocated by Surgeon McFeely in 1901.—I am, Sir, &c., AN OVERSEAS READER.
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