It is quite impossible and unnecessary to elaborate again the facts upon which these conclusions are based, which were given very fully in my previous lectures and book; but we may briefly consider some of the features just presented, and some of the evidence why cancer should be considered from a medical rather than a surgical standpoint. For it must be conceded that both the general medical profession and the laity still regard the disease as belonging to surgery, and look only to the knife for any hope in its treatment. In spite of all that has been done the present outlook for the checking of its rising mortality by this means, and for the prevention of cancer, is bad indeed, as will be shown in a later lecture. But, gentlemen, many great surgeons, in past and present time, as quoted in my former lectures, have acknowledged verbally and in writing their inability to cope with cancer as a disease, and have recognized time and again that they operated only because they knew of nothing better to do. Often it is acknowledged that the operation is only palliative, in the hope, alas, how often futile, that some good might result from it, in the chance that the dread disease would not return. We shall see later, when we come to study the mortality of cancer in various locations, and an analysis of surgical statistics, how slight the foundation is for such hopes. Both in the past and present times many surgeons of eminence, well acquainted with the disease, whom I quoted in my former lectures, have also more or less casually expressed the conviction that there was some deep-seated constitutional cause of cancer which baffled recognition, but which must have to do with the diet or mode of living of those afflicted. The most recent of these is Dr. William J. Mayo, who has spoken in no uncertain terms along this line, in a recent address as President of the American Surgical Association. And yet how relatively little intelligent effort has been put forth to discover and amend these conditions, and to remove the bodily derangement which eventuates in the formation of the foci of disease which later become malignant and form what is called cancer, or to modify the blood changes which ultimately destroy life!