Italy, consuming the least quantity of meat, 46.5 pounds per capita, in 1901, has the lowest cancer death rate, but the present meat consumption cannot be learned. In Italy, however, the mortality from this disease is steadily rising, from 50.9 per 100,000 in 1860 to 1900 to 63.6 per 100,000 from 1906 to 1910. But, as I have tried to show you all along, it is some derangement of metabolism which is at the bottom of neoplastic growths, and that derangement is not necessarily due to any one single cause, as diet. There are other elements of disturbance besides the nitrogenous malassimilation which is due to the intake of an excessive amount of the proteid of the animal kingdom; for cancer is said to have been seen in vegetarians, although I have never met with such a case. We know, however, that some or many articles from the vegetable kingdom, such as the pulses and some nuts, contain a very large proportion of proteid; thus dried peas contain 21 per cent, haricot beans 23, lentils 23.2, dried lima beans 26.4, soy bean flour, 39.5, butternuts 27.9, black walnuts 27.6, peanuts 25.8, and almonds 24 per cent of proteid, all more than is contained in beef and mutton. Thus a large supply of any of these might produce the same error in the blood stream as that induced by meat. In my former lectures I pointed out also that coffee and alcohol were found by statistics and clinical experience to have a prejudicial effect on cancer, and therefore must be considered as elements in its production. In a later lecture I shall deal more specifically with these matters, in reference to the prophylaxis and treatment of the disease. At the present time I will only remind you of what I have so often said before: that it is the complex of modern civilization, with all its temptations and errors in regard to eating and drinking, and living, including the nervous strain felt everywhere, that in some way produces alterations in nutrition which account for many of our diseases. This operates through the blood current, which ministers in such a way to the tissues that under some slight provocation a heterologous growth of certain tissue cells occurs, with malignant tendencies, instead of the normal homogeneous and stabile structures which compose healthy tissues; and this departure from normal cell action we call cancer. LECTURE III THE MORTALITY FROM CANCER; ANALYSIS OF SURGICAL STATISTICS As has been already shown in these and previous lectures, the death rate from cancer has been steadily and alarmingly increasing in almost every locality, ever since statistics have been collected. The attempt has been made from time to time to show that this increase is not real, but is apparent, and that the error arises from three main causes. These are: 1. The increased longevity in general, leading to the existence of more people of the cancerous age; 2. Improved diagnosis; and 3. More careful death certification.