Is Cancer Hereditary?


Edward Henry S. in his book Cancer its cause, prevention & cure tried to give the answer to the question “Is Cancer Hereditary?” and concluded that No morbid condition of the body has received its fullest consideration unless the influence of the malignant inheritance has been duly weighed….


THis question has been one, like every other aspect of cancer, which has given rise to much controversy. Any doubts, one way or the other, have been entirely dependent in ignorance of the cause of cancer growth incidence.

If, however, all facts are considered even without the definite knowledge that the cancer cause is a caustic mineral salt derived by hydrolysis from a mineral carbonate circulating in excess in the blood and tissue fluids, it must be recognized that the chemistry of the child’s body at birth is that of the mother’s, and if the mother’s blood contains the pre-carcinogenic mineral carbonates, the child at birth has an inheritance which if allowed to persist and permitted to be increased by the habits of civilization, must result in the early incidence of cancer.

Realizing that the progress of a case from when carbonates first become excessive in the blood, through deficiency of the free protective buffer salts of chlorine and phosphorus, to the day when through constant deposition and conversion to the caustic carcinogenic agent may be many years, during which children may be born to the mother thus carcinogenically endowed, it is obvious that with the downward progress of the mother as her blood becomes more and more charged with the pre-carcinogenic mineral carbonates, each successive child reaps a more and more pre-carcinogenic inheritance. The child of the carcinogenic, even though cancer growth incidence is delayed for years after the birth of the child and separation of its blood chemistry from its mother’s, must always be considered as potentially pre-carcinogenic. Cancer as a cellular new growth is not hereditary, but in view of facts as to cancer causation here put forward and substantiated by irrefutable tests, the pre-carcinogenic blood condition, the stepping stone to cancer incidence is hereditary. This inheritance if allowed to persist and to be abetted by the mineral salt habit of civilization, can have only one ending namely cancer formation, unless the constitutional conditions associated with the pre-carcinogenic mineral unbalance or accident, cause death before the stage when the pre-carcinogenic blood condition becomes the carcinogenic local condition of cancer cell evolution, proliferation and growth.

That many morbid conditions affecting children and adults are due to this terrible malignant inheritance can not be gainsaid when due consideration is given to exactly what this inheritance is and the effects it must inevitably bring about on the whole constitutional structure of the body and the functions of its vital organs.

No morbid condition of the body has received its fullest consideration unless the influence of the malignant inheritance has been duly weighed. Deformity of mind, body and organ can be its visible manifestation, and these can only be corrected when the underlying cause is recognized and, if possible, removed.

Edward Henty Smalpage
Edward Henty Smalpage (1895-1962), was an Australian doctor. He netered medical school at Sydney at age 16. He went into Military service after that. After leaving services on medical grounds (epilepsy), he cleared FRCS from England in 1921. In 1940 he published the book Cancer, it's Cause, Prevention and Cure.