Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

have now bee n brought unde r a reas onable degree of control and some have been practically
eliminated. This brilliant medical achievement came about by an attack that was twofold—that
stressed prevention as well as cure. Des pite the prominence that ‘ magic bullets ’ and ‘wonder
drugs ’ hold in the lay man’s mind, most of the really decisive battles in the war against
infectious dis eas e cons is ted of meas ures to eliminate dis eas e organis ms from the envi ronme nt.
An example from his tory concerns the great outbreak of cholera in London more than one
hundre d years ago. A London phys ician, John Snow, ma pped the occurre nce of cas es and found
they originated in one area, all of whose inhabitants drew their wate r from one pump located
on Broad Stree t. In a s wift and decisive practice of preventive medicine, Dr. Snow removed the
handle from the pump. The epide mic was brought under control—not by a magic pill that killed
the (the n unk nown) organis m of cholera, but by eliminating the organis m from the
environme nt. Eve n therape utic meas ures have the important res ult not only of curing the
patient but of reducing the foci of infection. The pres ent comparative rarity of tube rculos is
res ults in large meas ure from the fact that the average pers on now s eldom comes into contact
with the tubercle bacillus. Today we find our world filled with cancer-producing agents. An
attack on cancer that is concentrated wholly or even largely on therapeutic measures (even
ass uming a ‘cure’ could be found) in Dr. Hueper’s opinion will fail becaus e it leaves untouched
the great res ervoirs of carcinogenic agents which would continue to claim new victims fas ter
than the as yet elusive ‘cure’ could allay the disease.
Why have we been s low to adopt this common-s ens e approach to the cancer proble m?
Probably ‘the goal of curi ng the victims of cancer is more exciting, more tangible, more
glamorous and rewarding than prevention,’ s ays Dr. Hueper. Yet to prevent cancer from ever
being formed is ‘definitely more huma ne’ and can be ‘much more effective than cancer c ures ’.
Dr. Hueper has little patience with the wis hful thinking that promis es ‘a magic pill that we s hall
take each morning before breakfas t’ as protection agains t cancer. Part of the public trus t in
s uch an eventual outcome res ults from the mis conception that cancer is a s ingle, though
mysterious disease, with a single caus e and, hopefully, a s ingle cure. This of cours e is far from
the known truth. Jus t as environme ntal cancers are induced by a wide variety of chemical and
physical agents, so the malignant condition itself is manifested in many different and
biologically distinct ways. The long promis ed ‘breakthrough’, whe n or if it comes , cannot be
expected to be a panacea for all types of malignancy. Although the s earch mus t be conti nued
for therape utic meas ures to relieve and to cure thos e who have already become vi cti ms of
cancer, it is a dis s ervice to humanity to hold out the hope tha t the s oluti on will come s uddenly,
in a single master stroke. It will come slowly, one step at a time. Meanwhile as we pour our
millions into research and inves t all our hopes in vas t programs to find cures for es tablis hed
cases of cancer, we are neglecting the golden opportunity to prevent, even while we seek to
cure.
The tas k is by no mea ns a hopeles s one. In one important res pect the outlook is more
encouraging than the s ituation regarding infectious dis eas e at the turn of the century. The
world was then full of disease germs, as today it is full of carcinogens. But man did not put the
germs into the envi ronme nt and his role in s preading them was involunta ry. I n contras t, man
has put the vas t majority of carcinogens into the environme nt, and he can, if he wis hes ,
eliminate many of the m. The chemical agents of cancer have become entrenche d in our world
in two ways: first, and ironically, through man’s s earch for a better and easier way of life;