In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries cancer was often referred to as an “act of God” in punishment for sin. For instance, cancer of the tongue was said to afflict those who spoke against the Church, a view that the Church, not always strictly scientific in interpretation of phenomena, did not discourage. Here is a translation which Sir D’Arcy Power has made from Paul de Sorbant, a German physician writing in 1672, in his _Universa Medicina_. “We saw”; he says, “an ulcer of the tongue degenerating into cancer in the noble baron Vertemali, which caused such a haemorrhage from destruction of the sublingual arteries and veins that the patient was suffocated. He recognised with great penitence that the cause of this cancer was a divine punishment because he had often abused the clergy.” Benetus, about the same time, in his book called _Medicinae Septentriniolanus Collatitia_, describes a case of what he calls “Tumor Linguae Miraculosa.” Here is a translation of part of it. “There was lately a certain baron who had a very poisonous tongue. He not only directed his jibes against all and sundry, but he kept his most venemous shafts for the clergy and those who devoted themselves to God’s service. He was caught at last in the very act, by a holy brother of good repute as he was pealing this cursed bell, who said to him: ‘Your foul tongue has overlong deserved that punishment from an offended God which it will shortly receive.’ The Baron went off undismayed, but a few days afterwards a small swelling began to grow on the side of his tongue. Little by little it increased in size until it became an inoperable cancer, and at length the tongue having become incurved, twisted and drawn back to his throat, miserably afflicted, but penitent and confessed, he was summoned before the Great Judge who calls his servants to a most strict account.” This may all seem very far away and out of contact with our present-day thought, but only two years ago a dear old lady sent to the Cancer Hospital Research Department two pages of closely written typescript, the gist of which was that she was withdrawing her usual annual subscription, as, after giving the matter a great deal of thought, she had come to the conclusion that cancer was caused by the consumption of alcohol. So she proposed to forward her usual subscription to the local Temperance Society which really was striking at the root of the problem! The Secretary wrote and pointed out that cancer is very common in cats who are strict prohibitionists! The old lady did not reply! Let us come back again from theory to fact, and consider some of the factors which we know constantly to be associated with cancer, and which we are justified in regarding as being, in many cases, more than predisposing causes.