HEREDITY WITH REFERENCE TO CARCINOMA

Abstract

The statistical study of carcinoma is regarded by many writers as having been carried as far as it can be profitable; and certainly but little that is new has been gained through this method during the last decade. Nevertheless, its possibilities have not been exhausted; and it is highly desirable that the whole neoplasm problem in all of its aspects be attacked again from the statistical standpoint, though in a somewhat different way. Practically all of the old statistical studies of neoplasms, particularly those of carcinoma, were based on mortality reports; or if not on these, on morbidity reports based on clinical diagnoses. In very few instances only has the statistical study been carried out on the basis of the records of a diagnostic pathological laboratory. Statistics of neoplasm from such a source must be of infinitely greater value than those founded on mortality statistics. In the records of