BY SIDNEY G. MARTIN, A.I.A. (lONDON). 7 



cancer statistics. The English rates are higher in both sexes 

 than ours, on account of the larger proportions of persons 

 living at the higher ages. Taking the proportions of persons 

 living at the different ages as they exist in Queensland, the 

 deaths in England from cancer would, in 1898, have been 15-6 

 for males, and 24-7 for females, per 10,000 living over age 35. 

 Twenty years ago female cancer was in England double the 

 rate for male, as in the Queensland experience ; during that 

 term the increase in female cancer has just kept pace with our 

 own, but the rate of increase in male cancer has been less 

 than ours. 



There has been considerable controvesy as to whether the 

 increase in cancer is real or only apparent. The advocates of 

 the latter view include Mr. George King, one of the foremost of 

 British actuaries, who, with Dr. A. Newsholm, reported in a 

 paper read before the Royal Society of London, 1893, as the 

 result of an investigation into this matter that the increase in 

 deaths from cancer was due to improvement in diagnosis, and a 

 more careful certification of the cause of death, and gave 

 statistics to show that the whole of the increase has taken place 

 in inaccessible cases of cancer, in which, from their position, 

 exact diagnosis is difficult, while accessible cancer easily 

 diagnosed has remained practically stationary. For those who 

 contend that the increase is real, and not merely apparent, I 

 quote from a paper read before this Society by Dr. Hirschfeld 

 in 1893, he said : " We are therefore forced to the conclusion 

 that the rapidly and greatly increasing prevalence of cancer in 

 the Australian colonies cannot be accounted for by an increase 

 out of proportion of that part of the population which is most 

 liable to malignant tumours (aged persons), nor by greater 

 accuracy of diagnosis, even by a certain small natural increase 

 in consequence of hereditary transmission, that on the contrary 

 the improved diagnosis of the earlier stages, together with the 

 advancement of surgical treatment, should warrant a diminution 

 instead of an augmentation of the cases of death caused by 

 cancer." 



For the other side I quote from the concluding remarks of 

 the paper by Mr. King and Dr. Newsholme : 



"1. Males and females suffer equally from cancer in these 

 parts of the body common to men and women, the greater 

 prevalence of cancer among females being due entirely to cancer 

 of the sexual organs. This is shown by the Frankfort statistics, 

 and may not unreasonably be accepted as a general law, seeing 



