THE DIAGNOSIS OF EARLY BREAST TUMORS

Abstract

There are two types of research: One seeks for the unknown irrespective of the needs of the people. The other is a research for the practical and pressing needs of the people today. When we study our 33,000 histories of patients recorded in the Surgical Pathological Laboratory of the Johns Hopkins Hospital since 1890 and search for the chief controllable factor in our failure to cure, it is the duration of the disease known to the patient and recorded by the answers to the questions: How long have you been ill? How long have you felt the lump? Today, therefore, the chief hope of increasing the number of cures of cancer is the shortening of the duration of the disease. Apparently this can be accomplished only by the education of the public—giving them correct information. If the lump felt by the patient proves to be cancer, its duration is the