226 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



cannot be used for purposes of comparison with statistics dealing 

 with countries in which the whole population and causes of 

 death are registered. As far as we know, there is no community 

 of men existing under any kind of conditions in which cancer 

 does not occur and those races in which cancer is said to be 

 least common are generally those about which we know least. 

 Cancer is apparently as common or nearly as common among 

 mice as among men. Mice are the only animals which have 

 been kept in vast numbers in laboratories under careful obser- 

 vation for the purpose of cancer research. 



Recently it has been suggested by Lazarus-Barlow that 

 there is a connexion between radium and cancer. 1 He says : 

 " Radium appears to be found somewhat more frequently and 

 in larger though still minute quantity in carcinomatous than 

 in non-carcinomatous tissue ; but the point is not yet certain, 

 since in three instances in which carcinomatous and non-car- 

 cinomatous tissues were obtained from the same body and in 

 which radium was found, it was present in larger quantity in 

 the non-carcinomatous tissue." 



A more suggestive set of figures are those given by this same 

 observer 2 in connexion with the occurrence of gallstones in 

 cancerous and non-cancerous cases. During the years 1900-4 

 inclusive, autopsies were made upon 1,448 individuals above 

 the age of 35 years : of these 699 were cancerous, 749 non- 

 malignant ; among the 749 non-malignant cases, gallstones were 

 found in 37, that is 4*94 per cent. The cases of cancer are 

 divided into those suffering from primary cancer of the gall- 

 bladder and those suffering from cancer in other parts of the 

 body. Amongst the 693 cases of cancer elsewhere than in 

 the gall-bladder, gallstones were found in 59, that is in 8*51 

 per cent. ; but gallstones were found in all the 6 cases of 

 primary cancer of the gall-bladder. The latter proportion may, 

 however, be too high, as Colwell^ealing with a period of 50 

 years, states that gallstones were discovered in only 27 out 

 of 31 cases of primary malignant disease of the gall-bladder 

 and bile passages at the Middlesex Hospital, that is to say 

 that gallstones were found in 87*1 per cent, of cases of primary 

 cancer of the gall-bladder. Lazarus-Barlow gives the following 

 figures as to the amount of radium, in the cases dealt with by 



1 Arch. Middlesex Hosp. nth Report, Cancer Research Lab. 1912. 

 3 Op. cit. 3 Arch. Middlesex Hosp. 4th Cancer Report, 1905. 



