PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 729 
likely tg relieve the monotony of life. and diminish our 
drinking habits, than piling restraint upon restraint, as many 
well-wishers of their kind desire, until absolute prohibition 
is ultimately reached. 
The bicycle, I venture to say, has done move to elevate 
the people in the matter of temperance than a week of lec- 
tures have been able to effect. It is in this direction, then, 
in my opinion, that philanthropists should work. I have 
lived too long not to recognise the dulness of the “ lives of 
the masses,’ and how productive of evil this lack of variety 
must be. ‘Too many holidays,” said a friend of mine to 
me once. ‘ Not at all, but too little to do on these occa- 
sions.” No doubt at these times you are better off for 
amusements than we, in a big city like Melbourne, with your 
beautiful river and the sea at your door; but, with us, to 
the labouring classes, these breaks must be dreamy days, 
and drinking is too frequently the outcome of this weari- 
ness, and the would-be social reformer had better not forget 
It. 
We come now to Cancer. I referred to it in alluding 
to heredity, as an intrinsic cause of disease. Let me tell 
you, at the outset, save that its microscopic characteristics 
have of late been much elaborated. little more is known of 
this disease than we were acquainted with in my student 
days. Clinically, its variations still puzzle us; at one time 
marching with feverish rapidity, and at another time re- 
maining almost torpid for years. As you know, opinions 
are divided as to its nature, whether it is due to the invasion 
of a parasite, or to some other cause. To my mind, the 
evidence in favour of the former is extremely weak, and only 
the results obtained by Professor Coley with his fluid lend 
probability to the theory. There is no doubt, if his accounts 
are correct, sarcoma, or that form of cancer which is char- 
acterised by undue multiplication of the embryonic cell, is, 
in some way or other, connected with germ invasion. The 
Professor’s antidote, if I may call it so, is, as you are pro 
bably aware, an anti-toxin provided by a streptococcus and 
the bacillus prodigiosus, and, being such, its curative action 
must solely depend on its germicidal properties. 
Now, there is one thing about this fluid I cannot under- 
stand, and that is why no other surgeon or physician, in 
using it, meets with anything like the success that its 
originator attributes to it. I do not for one moment doubt 
the correctness of Dr. Coley’s reports, but I have never 
heard that anyone else who has tried it has, as yet, succeeded 
in effecting a cure in sarcoma. At all events, though this 
remedy has been before the profession for the last three or 
