Buenos Aires, March 1936.
While studying at the library of the Faculty of Medicine, Arturo Prins
- a physician on the make - finds a hand-written note on a piece of
paper inside a textbook on cancer. The words on the note make no
sense to him but are awkward enough to awake his curiosity: two
words in a native language, something else that appears to be the
name of a place, and a physician’s name and a date. He would like to
find out the meaning, just out of curiosity, but he doesn’t have time to
dedicate and the note goes into oblivion.
Four years later, Arturo has graduated and is working at a charity
hospital, pursuing his specialization in Oncology. One night, one of
Arturo’s terminal cancer patients is about to pass and, in a crisis of
paroxistic pain and delirium, calls Arturo and pronounces some barely
intelligible words in his native Guaraní language. Next morning, the
nurse on night duty reports to Arturo and spells the words the patient
was whispering before passing away, apparently a posthumous
message for him.
The meaning of those words, as Arturo finds out later, tells him he has
to decipher the note he had found four years earlier, but the copy he
had made of it, and the original, are nowhere to be found.
Some subsequent events lead him to believe that the note contained
the clues for a scientific discovery of utmost importance for
humankind … the unveiling of the mystery of cancer, for centuries so
effectively kept away from the human intellect. Arturo sets himself up
on a quest to find them.
But he is not aware of the power and ruthlessness of the dark forces
gathering to try preventing him to succeed. The stakes are high:
everybody seems to know it but him.
***
The novel contains the complete, detailed recollection of a
scientifically correct investigation on cancer, which demonstrated
that the disease can be detected before malignancy arises,
prevented, and effectively treated with therapeutic means devoid of
toxicity and adverse side effects. This research was actually
conducted about fifty years ago, and successfully completed to full
satisfaction of Koch's postulates.
The actual causes and origins of cancer – so far unknown to the
scientific community at large – arise under the eyes of the reader in a
way that makes unavoidable reaching the conclusion that cancer as a
lethal disease should have been eradicated long ago. Why then is
cancer still rampant?
The recollection of the research is wrapped in a human story, very
touching for its simplicity and realism. Love, romance, greed, comedy,
drama, endless suspense, are elements present throughout the
novel, to place the reader in the place, time, and circumstances in
which the action develops.
***
The main purpose of Karkinos is to make everybody aware of the fact
that cancer can strike at any time, without previous notification,
without distinction for reason of age, sex, race, religion, or social
or economic status. Cancer is a ‘Damocles sword’ hanging over the
head of every human being, but there is more than sufficient
evidence available to assert it shouldn't be this way. However, it will
remain so until a profound change is introduced in the way medical
research is conducted, and in the practice of Medicine.
Karkinos is therefore a call for everybody to wake up and join forces,
to put an end to the status quo. It can be done, it needs to be done.
***
NOTE: When you buy this book, a major part of what you pay will go to
fund cancer research. Please visit the American Anti-Cancer Society
web-site: http://www.americananticancersociety.com
Karkinos
A novel by Eduardo De la Maria, Ph.D.
Karkinos
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