At the present time the question of the nature
of cancer and its relative incidence under varying conditions is uppermost in medical literature.
The problems requiring solution are at present in
a stage in which even contributions of a negative
nature iri specific directions have a value which
does not always attach to such studies.In this thesis I shall consider the incidence
of cancer among the inmates of two lunatic asylums.Statements are frequently made to the effect
that cancer is rare or does not occur among lunatics, and by inference one might he led to believe
that the two conditions mutually excluded one another.It was originally my intention to investigate
this question on the basis of the t figures obtain -
able from all the asylums under the control of the
London County Council. The abstraction and tabulation of the data has, however, been a labour far
exceeding my expectation and has occupied so much
time that up till now I have only been able to
overtake the work with reference to two asylums.
The work is all the more difficult to carry out
because the records are not kept with a view to the
future abstraction of the data here given and the
separate records have therefore to be referred to
