ter performed by those who were familiar with this branch of practice, and who were operating daily in their own special department. For this purpose a gynæcologist was added to the service, who should have charge of cases of internal cancer in females. Inasmuch as this class forms quite a large proportion of all the cases occurring in females, and the disease may at times prove very troublesome, a separate ward was set apart for the purpose, under the exclusive care of the gynæcologist, where special treatment could be more satisfactorily carried on.
To meet the further requirements of the hospital, a consulting board of physicians and surgeons was formed, containing gentlemen of prominence in various departments of medicine, in order that the best advice might be obtained in cases affecting the eye, ear, throat, etc., and in matters of general medical importance. A pathologist was also added to aid in the study of disease.
In the consideration of the subject of the association of cancer and skin-diseases in the same institution, it must be remembered that it is against common medical precedent to have a hospital devoted to a single disease, such as cancer. The tendency of specialism is to become too narrowed, to fix too much attention upon one single subject or portion of the body, to the exclusion of others which may and generally do have the utmost relative importance. When, from studying or practicing a special branch of medicine, one comes to confine the attention to a single disease, the danger is increased manifold. Those who have heretofore claimed to devote their exclusive attention to cancer have been mainly found among the class of quacks who prey upon the credulity and ignorance of suffering humanity. Cancer, to be studied and treated scientifically, requires to be still kept where it belongs, one disease out of others of the same class. The London Cancer Hospital, the only one of its kind, as far as we know, would undoubtedly have been the means of much greater good if it had not been a special institution for a single disease, which from that cause has never had the hearty support of the British medical profession; its usefulness might have been greatly increased had it either been attached to some other hospital (as, for instance, there is a cancer department attached to the Middlesex Hospital), or had it received at the same time the many cases of skin-disease which are often confounded with cancer.
If it be asked why the necessity of including the name cancer in the title of the hospital, it may be answered that only thus is the full scope of the institution made known to the public, and by this means multitudes of persons will be reached, who otherwise would never know that this disease was treated in the institution. As it appears by its recent annual report, the work at the hospital has been steady and useful; it has been limited, however, by the capacity of the present building and by the limited means at hand for the work. With the establishment of the Country Branch Hospital, which has been con-
