Personality and Cancer

his letter Dr. Torley appears to be either an apologist for South African racial doctrines or grossly ill-informed about conditions in that country. Do not let us be so naive as to imagine that this is one isolated incident in South Africa. It must be assessed against the background of apartheid in general and also the profession's attitude in that country to apartheid in science. In 1947 an Indian doctor was appointed senior resident officer at a hospital in Capetown, and as such was responsible for supervising the work of the junior house officers and also for doing the emergency surgery-general surgical, traumatic, and gynaecological. The post also carried with it the responsibility for bleeding white blood donors for emergency transfusions at the hospital. Because he was non-white, the blood transfusion service in Capetown refused the senior resident permission to do this, and instead one of the white junior house officers was entrusted with this duty. The profession raised no objection to this and completely condoned the action of the blood transfusion service. It may surprise Dr. Torley to know that since 1945 nonwhite medical students at the University of Capetown Medical School have been forbidden to attend any class, clinic, or operation on a white patient or attend a necropsy on or dissect a white corpse. When they register at the University they are required to sign a document undertaking to abide by this. Does that meet with Dr. Torley's requirements for scientific integrity or his interpretation of the Hippocratic Oath ? Of course it is known that group A seems to be commonest in western Europe, B in south-east Asia, and 0 among socalled primitive groups such as Australian and American aborigines, but surely we do not suggest having separate blood banks in England, for instance, to serve the needs of the numerous racial groups living in this country. Would Dr. Torley refuse to accept a transfusion of compatible blood from a negro donor on the remote off-chance of the presence of a hypothetical injurious factor to be discovered in South Africa in the still more remote future ? No, Sir, do not let us emulate the South African ostrich and hideour heads in the sands of pseudo-science. To the exponents of theories of racial superiority, of Herrenvolk, the word " blood" possesses a highly emotional content. The Oxford Dictionary states: " Blood is popularly treated as the typical part of the body which children inherit from their parents and ancestors; hence that of parents and children, and of the members of a family or race, is spoken of as identical and as being distinct from other families or races." Dobzhansky' says, " It is most unfortunate that the theory of 'blood,' though invalidated decades ago, still colours not merely the thinking of laymen, but finds its way, explicitly or implicitly, into textbooks." It took a world war to disclose to us the depths to which scientists could descend to serve a political theory. If the medical profession in South Africa has initiated this present move, let it publish the grounds on which it bases the incompatibility of negro and white blood. On the other hand, if this is merely another political stunt of the South African Government, we hope that country's medical men will challenge it, but whatever happens we must question the integrity of a radical departure from the accepted standards and criteria of blood compatibility.I am, etc.,