----------------------------------------------- | Year. | Males | Females | |--------------------------|--------|---------| | 1905 .. .. .. | 12,470 | 17,761 | | 1906 .. .. .. | 13,257 | 18,411 | | 1907 .. .. .. | 13,199 | 18,546 | | 1908 .. .. .. | 13,901 | 18,816 | | 1909 .. .. .. | 14,263 | 19,790 | | 1910 .. .. .. | 14,843 | 19,764 | | 1911 .. .. .. | 15,589 | 20,313 | | 1912 .. .. .. | 16,188 | 21,135 | | | | | ----------------------------------------------- The terrible thing about these figures is their uniformity from year to year. With as great a degree of certainty as the farmer foretells the produce of his fields and the results of his seed-sowing, so the statistician can calculate the tribute that cancer will exact from the human race in future years. How many persons in England and Wales will die from some from of cancer during the year 1917? Unless some great catastrophe shall vastly lessen the total population, the number of victims destined to perish from malignant disease during that one year will hardly be less than 38,500, and in all probability will be more. And we have no reason to doubt that in the United States the mortality from cancer would be found equally uniform were it possible to know the facts. Nor does uniformity pertain to numbers of either sex only. Each period of life has to furnish its special toll. If we look at the mortality among men or women for a period of years, we shall see this phenomenon very clearly. In the following table we see the deaths of men from cancer, in England, at each ten-year age-period. DEATHS FROM CANCER AT DIFFERENT AGE-PERIODS (ENGLAND): AGE-PERIODS OF MALES -------------------------------------------------------------- |YEAR|Under|25-35.|35-45.|45-55.|55-65.|65-75.| Above |Total.| | | 25. | | | | | | 75. | | |----|-----|------|------|------|------|------|-------|------| |1906| 250 | 322 | 927 | 2,454| 4,087| 3,651| 1,566 |13,257| |1907| 305 | 277 | 921 | 2,392| 4,041| 3,675| 1,588 |13,199| |1908| 274 | 317 | 925 | 2,594| 4,147| 3,957| 1,687 |13,901| |1909| 262 | 296 | 921 | 2,581| 4,319| 4,174| 1,710 |14,263| |1910| 283 | 337 |1,001 | 2,778| 4,377| 4,315| 1,752 |14,843| |1911| 309 | 317 | 978 | 2,901| 4,627| 4,602| 1,855 |15,589| -------------------------------------------------------------- Precisely the same phenomenon is to be found in the cancer-mortality of women. Each ten-year period of life exacts its own proportion, with an increasing death-rate out of proportion to the increase of population.