rt of the Registrar-
General for the year 1910, tells us that in "all countries from which
returns have been received the mortality has shown a general tendency
to increase in recent years." Speaking on the "Menace of Cancer," the
statistician of the Prudential Insurance Company of America affirmed
that "the cancer death-rate in the United States is increasing at the
rate of 2.5 per cent. per annum, and a corresponding increase is
taking place practically throughout the civilized world." The cancer-
rate among men in the United States has increased, according to the
same authority, 29 per cent. during the last decade. The steady
increase of cancer year after year is strikingly shown by a curve
diagram, based upon the English mortality for several years.

A significant illustration of the steady increase in the mortality
from cancer is shown by its fatality among women in England between
the ages of forty-five and sixty-five. In the year 1875, of all
deaths of women at this period of life, one in ten (in round numbers)
was due to some form of malignant disease. In 1890 the tribute
exacted by the disease had become one in eight. Ten years later--in
1900--of all women dying in England during this period of middle life,
the toll of cancer was one in seven; and in 1910 the corresponding
proportion was one in five! At this rate of increase it will not be
many years before a full third of all the deaths of women at this time
of life will be due to malignant disease. There can be little doubt
that the same phenomenon would be found to pertain to American
experience, were it possible to disentangle the facts from the
obscurity in which they are now permitted to lie. It is a curious
fact that in England until the year 1900--and, so far as we know, for
thousands of years--the death-rate from consumption among women was
considerably higher than that of malignant disease; that in 1903, for
the first time, the cancer-mortality of women exceeded that of
phthisis; and that in 1910 it had so far surpassed it that they are
not likely ever again to be equal, unless we shall discover the cause
of the more fatal plague.

The theory has been put forth by certain writers that the increased
death-rate from cancer is due, not to any increased frequency of the
dissease, but rather to improved methods of detection. It is quite
certain that fifty years ago, for instance, surgeons were less able
and less willing to pronounce judgment regar