M 



ON THE PREVALENCE OF CANCER IN AUSTRALASIA. 



Victoria. To give you an instance. While in Victoria between 

 35 and 40 cancer is still a comparatively rare affection of the 

 female sex, the women of Queensland show almost double the 

 liability at the same age ; the exact proportion is 63 to 11. 

 As regards men there is also a difference noticeable, but not 

 to so great an extent as in the female sex. 



This seems to support the opinion generally prevalent 

 that one of the effects of the hot climate on white people is 

 that they age more quickly under it and are consequently affected 

 by diseases peculiar to old people at an earlier age, although on 

 the whole the hot climate diminishes the frequency of cancer. 

 Compared with the returns of European countries we find that 

 both in England and Ireland the liability to cancer is greatest 

 between 55 and 65 and between 65 and 75 years of age. At the 

 latter age-group the Australian curve shows already a very con- 

 siderable decline. This comparison is all the more interesting 

 since it proves that the early susceptibility to malignant new 

 growths is not due to an inheritance of race. 



Fidce. 



There seems to be very little reason to doubt that certain 

 races show a greater predisposition to cancer than others. Of 

 course there are a good many difficulties in strictly proving the 

 influence of the race. Generally speaking, the difference of race 

 also implies a difference of both climatic and social conditions, 

 of customs, habits, food, etc. Each of these factors may exercise 

 a certain influence on the production of cancer, though it might 

 be difficult to exactly circumscribe it. Keeping this in view, I 

 give the annual death-rate from cancer, per 100,000 living, in 

 various countries, from 1881 to 1884, as follows : — 



