[1][2][3] Gilford was also an alternative cancer treatment advocate who wrote under the pseudonym John Cope.

[4] Gilford came to the conclusion that cancer is a disease of civilization and rarely found amongst primitive peoples.

[6][7][8][9] Gilford suggested that constipation from faulty foods causes cancer as well as irritants such as dentures, furnace heat, glass eyes, sexual perversion and tobacco.

It is not even accurate enough to place in the hands of the layman, for he will only wander among the quotations, anecdotes, and other ornaments which fill the book and look in vain for anything new about cancer.

"[12] A positive review appeared in the British Journal of Nursing which described it as well-written treatise on cancer with much valuable material.

It received a mixed review in the Journal of the American Medical Association which disagreed with the thesis but applauded its interesting philosophical speculation.