In another work I have ventured to suggest that if we are to discover the cause of cancer, we must study the habits and customs of those still living who have become the victims of some form of this mysterious disease. A theory held by some is that cancer is due to the consumption of meat. If one means that the flesh of perfectly healthy animals is liable to cause cancer, the hypothesis is one for which it seems to me that the evidence is far from being sufficient to justify belief. But if, on the other hand, it is suggested that malignant disease may be due to germs derived from animals which were suffering from som form of cancer when they were killed for the food of human beings, then much that is otherwise obscure becomes plain. We should expect in such cases to find cancer more prevalent among the poor than among the rich, and especially prevalent among those who, from carelessness, or ignorance, or seeming necessity, consume the cheaper kinds of meat. And since, both in their native land and in America, the Italian population consumes less meat than peoples of other nationalities, we should expect them to be less liable to be infected by the germs of malignant disease. A few years ago a medical writer who has given much attention to this disease published some of his investigations into the cancer death-rate of Chicago. Taking the figures for a single year, he discovered that the "cancer death-rate among the Irish and German residents of Chicago is the highest in the world, being nearly 300 per cent. higher than in their native countries."[1] Of each 10,000 population of each nationality living at the age of forty years and over, he found that the deaths from cancer among the Germans was 76, among the Irish 70, among the Scandinavians 52, and among the natives of Italy 24. It was found that, while the staple diet of Italians in Chicago was macaroni and spaghetti, the people of other nationalities among whom the cancer-rate was exceedingly high, "consume large quantities of canned and preserved meats and sausages, OFTEN EATEN UNCOOKED." He discovered that a large part of the fresh meat prepared at the establishment of a certain slaughtering establishment in Chicago was derived from animals which had been condemned on the ante- mortem inspection, but the flesh of which was perimitted TO BE SOLD AS PURE FOOD AFTER THE DISEASED PARTS HAD BEEN REMOVED. Sold thus at a cheaper price, such meat was chiefly consumed by the poorer classes of the foreign population. And while Dr. Adams does not adopt the hypothesis of the cancer-germ, he does not think there can be "the slightest question but that the increase in cancer among the foreign- born over the prevalence of that disease in their native countries is due to the increased consumption of animal foods, PARTICULARLY THOSE DERIVED FROM DISEASED ANIMALS." [1] See article by Dr. G. Cooke Adams in Chicago Clinic of August, 1907, pp. 248-251.