ce, are practically
incomprehensible; for this thirty-year tribute to malignant disease in
a signle country represents more human being than all estimated to
have perished on the battlefields of Europe for two hundred years.
And if we were able to add the mortality from this one disease on the
Continent of Europe, it might represent a total of several millions.

Another significant circumstance is the uniformity of the tribute
exacted by cancer, year after year. We can see that best by taking
the actual number of deaths from this cause, in a single country, and
observing with what slow, implacable, and ever-increasing steps the
great destroyer advances.

DEATHS FROM CANCER IN ENGLAND AND WALES

-----------------------------------------------
| Year. | Males | Females |
|--------------------------|--------|---------|
| 1905 .. .. .. | 12,470 | 17,761 |
| 1906 .. .. .. | 13,257 | 18,411 |
| 1907 .. .. .. | 13,199 | 18,546 |
| 1908 .. .. .. | 13,901 | 18,816 |
| 1909 .. .. .. | 14,263 | 19,790 |
| 1910 .. .. .. | 14,843 | 19,764 |
| 1911 .. .. .. | 15,589 | 20,313 |
| 1912 .. .. .. | 16,188 | 21,135 |
| | | |
-----------------------------------------------

The terrible thing about these figures is their uniformity from year
to year. With as great a degree of certainty as the farmer foretells
the produce of his fields and the results of his seed-sowing, so the
statistician can calculate the tribute that cancer will exact from the
human race in future years. How many persons in England and Wales
will die from some from of cancer during the year 1917? Unless some
great catastrophe shall vastly lessen the total population, the number
of victims destined to perish from malignant disease during that one
year will hardly be less than 38,500, and in all probability will be
more. And we have no reason to doubt that in the United States the
mortality from cancer would be found equally uniform were it possible
to know the facts.

Nor does uniformity pertain to numbers of either sex only. Each
period of life has to furnish its special toll. If we look at the
mortality among men or women for a period of years, we shall see this
phenomenon very clearly. In the following table we see the deaths of
men from cancer, in England, at each ten-year age-period.