ABSTRACT
CANCER mortality has been the subject of multitudinous studies during the last fifty years. In this period, the registered death-rate from cancer has steadily increased. In England and Wales the average annual death-rate from cancer registered in 1851-60 was 207 per million living (standardised population) among males and 440 among females. In 1901-10 these rates had increased respectively to 784 and 942, and in 1916-20 to 957 and 996. In the year 1931 cancer headed the list of single causes of death in England and Wales (59,346 deaths), tuberculosis coming next (35,818 deaths).
