To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith communications to me from the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, the Commissioner of Fisheries, and Dr. H. R. Gaylord, Director of the New York State Cancer Laboratory, in respect to the necessity for an active investigation into the subject of cancer in fishes, and I respectfully request an appropriation of $50,000 for the purpose of erecting one or more laboratories at suitable places and to provide for the proper personnel and maintenance of these laboratories. Were there a bureau of public health such as I have already recommended, the matter could be taken up by that bureau, and if in the wisdom of the Congress it should be provided in the near future, all such instrumentalities as that for which appropriation is here recommended may be placed in that bureau as the proper place for research in respect of human diseases.
I have directed the Secretary of Commerce and Labor and the Secretary of the Treasury to forward an estimate for the appropriation here recommended, in accordance with the procedure provided by law.
The very great importance of pursuing the investigation into the cause of cancer can not be brought home to the Congress or to the public more acutely than by inviting attention to the memorandum of Doctor Gaylord herewith. Progress in the prevention and treatment of human diseases has been marvelously aided by an investigation into the same disease in those of the lower animals which are subject to it, and we have every reason to believe that a close investigation into the subject of cancer in fishes, which are frequently swept away by an epidemic of it, may give us light upon this dreadful human scourge.
WILLIAM H. TAFT
Note: This Message was accompanied by a report from Dr. H. R. Gaylord, Director of the New York State Cancer Laboratory, in which he stated that: "One woman out of every eight, beyond the age of 45, dies of cancer, and the mortality among men is only somewhat less. This terrible disease has increased of late years in all civilized countries. In the United States from 9 deaths per 100,000 of population in 1850 it had risen in 1900 to 43 deaths per 100,000. In the registration area of this country in 1906 it was 70 per 100,000. This astonishing increase has raised the deaths from this cause so that now approximately half as many die of cancer as of tuberculosis. "The cause of cancer is not yet known. Domestic animals of various sorts are subject to the disease.
"Cancer in man is most prevalent in the well wooded, well watered, and mountainous regions or in poorly drained areas with alluvial soil. These facts have attracted the attention of scientists to the possible prevalence of cancer in fish. We now know that fish are subject to various types of cancer, certain varieties being subject to epidemics of cancer. It is an astonishing coincidence that the distribution of those varieties of fish which are subject to cancer epidemics and the concentration of cancer in man in this country are almost identical. A map of one might well be taken as a map of the other.
"An investigation of the conditions obtaining among fish offers the best opportunity for determining the conditions under which cancer is spontaneously acquired, and it is believed that a careful study of these conditions will not only enable us to eliminate the disease from among fish but to gain information of an invaluable character for humanity."
