BY EUGEN HIRSCHFELD, M.D. 69 



What is the reason of this enormously increased prevalence 

 of cancer in Australia ? It may be contended that this increase 

 is only apparent. In former times the population consisted 

 largely of people who had emigrated to Australia mostly in the 

 prime of their life, at a period of age in which the susceptibility 

 to cancer was naturally very small, since far the greatest liability 

 shows itself at a time past middle age. Therefore, the increasing 

 average age of the inhabitants would be naturally accompanied 

 by a corresponding greater tendency to a disease peculiar to 

 elderly people. However, this explanation cannot hold good. 

 Take Victoria as an instance : While tlie growth of the population 

 in the first ten years of our period of observation was consider- 

 ably augmented by the influx of immigrants, who were mostly 

 adult persons, the natural increase by the excess of births over 

 deaths began to prevail more and more every year. Con- 

 sequently the increased age of the immigrant portion was more 

 than counterbalanced by the much greater increase of young 

 children, amongst whom malignant tumours are conspicuous by 

 then- absence. Mr. Hayter, the Government Statist of Victoria, 

 furnishes us with a table in which the numbers of males and 

 females of different age-groups are compared in 1881 and 1891. 



From these figures it becomes apparent that the number of 

 males aged between 20 and 35 had increased by more than 

 80,000 persons in these ten years, while between 40 and 55 an 

 actual decrease of more than 10,000 persons had taken place. 

 Under these circumstances we naturally would expect a falling 

 off in the deaths from cancer instead of an increase. Viewed in 

 this light the rapid elevation of the death rate from cancer is all 

 the more striking. 



Another explanation that may be brought forward is that 

 the augmentation of the cancer cases is attributable to the 

 greater accuracy of diagnosis and a stricter system of classifi- 

 cation introduced into the Registrar-General's Department by 

 doing away with such general terms as atrophy, debility, 

 marasmus, inanition, &c., and demanding a more exact 

 description of the cause of death. This supposition seems to be 

 confirmed by the fact that the increase of cancer has been 

 greater amongst males than females, carcinoma in women being 



