After this _precancerous_ stage there appears what may be called _early cancer_, often indistinguishable to the naked eye from the original precancerous lesion, but giving rise to great suspicion in the eyes of the initiated on account of its hardness, and tendency to be fixed, and its resistance to treatment. Cancer in this stage can be cured, with results which will compare favourably with the cure of any other known disease (i.e., in about ninety per cent. of all cases) its cure simply depending on early diagnosis. This is a fact neither known nor appreciated by the general public, and until it is known by everybody, and these early stages are radically dealt with, we shall still be spending our time and money looking for new and miraculous cures for a condition which, in its very nature, is unlikely to be susceptible to any method of cure when its late stages are reached. The third stage is that in which the neighbouring lymph glands are involved. In this stage about thirty per cent. are incurable, but these figures are not of much help or comfort to any particular sufferer as they depend on the degree of involvement and the rapidity of growth. There is, in the vast majority of cases, no reason why it should ever reach this stage other than those causes which are within the control of the patient and his doctor. Lastly we get to a stage in which the disease is frankly inoperable, and generally speaking, only capable of relief by one palliative measure or other. About forty to fifty per cent. of all cases which reach the surgeon have already arrived at this stage, and it is to this fact that the generally hopeless attitude of everybody is to be attributed. It is only when this stage is reached that the patient has pain and symptoms which “wake him up,” and that he realises the calamity which has befallen him. The early signs of cancer may now be summed up as those of a lesion of some kind, extending over a number of years, giving rise to very little trouble or inconvenience, and followed by a small hard lump or ulcer. If the latter is present, it is often characterised by bleeding. Again, practically no symptoms. To find it we must _look and see_; often an operation involving practically no suffering and a very small mortality is necessary. But the penalties of failure to do this at the proper time are that ten per cent. of the population die of cancer. There are certain popular misconceptions about cancer which require correction. The first is that cancer is necessarily painful. This is responsible for much of the late diagnosis, operative mortality and the bad results. Only late cancer, and it would not be far wrong to say only _incurable_ cancer, gives rise to pain. If only pain were an early sign of cancer the whole aspect of the cancer problem would be changed.