14 THE BRADSHAW LECTURE 



tagious disease slowed doivn by age. This conceded, 

 many observations fall readily into line. Thus 

 Sir Henry Butlin's cases indicating that the 

 instances on which heredity was based were all 

 on either the father's or on the mother's side, 

 would admit of the explanation that these indi- 

 viduals were more intimately associated, and so 

 more liable to contagion. It explains the occur- 

 rence of several instances in the same house. It 

 explains also the death of husband and wife of 

 the same disease, of which I will mention three 

 instances. A lady was operated on for cancer 

 of the uterus, subsequently her husband died 

 of cancer of the liver, and later she died of 

 recurrence of the original disease. A gentleman 

 I frequently meet in the City is one of six sons, 

 all living and healthy, whose ages range between 

 fifty-three and seventy. His father died at the 

 age of fifty-seven from cancer of the rectum, his 

 mother at sixty-one of cancer of the breast. He 

 had one sister, who lived with her parents, and 

 attended them in their last illnesses. She died 

 of cancer of the breast, and what makes the 

 probability of contagion stronger is the fact 

 that the nurse also developed cancer, and died 

 from it. 



I operated on a lady in 1898 with so extensive 



