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been operated upon can be given, and for the best of
reasons. Some patients—and under favourable conditions
a large number of them—live for many years,
and it is impossible for the surgeon to keep in touch
with all of them for perhaps ten, fifteen or more years
after operation. Even to secure exact information for
so short a period as three or five years after operation
is not easy. Hence a majority of surgeons have been
obliged to content themselves with reporting the
percentages of their patients who have survived three
years from the date of operation. The aggregate
results, based on the experience of many surgeons in
different countries, are as follows. When the old and
now generally superseded incomplete operation was
performed, about 25 per cent. of the patients were
known to be alive at the end of three years after
operation. When the more complete operation of modern
times was performed, twice as many, some 50 per cent.,
survived three years, and 33 per cent. survived five
years after operation. These statistics, however, relate
to patients who at the time of operation were in various
stages of the disease, some in a condition such that,
although the surgeon could be reasonably sure that
operation would afford relief, and might eradicate the
disease altogether, he could have little confidence that
the disease would not recur. On the other hand,
statistics exist of the results when the disease at the
time the patient came to the surgeon appeared to be
in an early stage and limited to the breast only. In
this early condition, it is certain that 60 per cent., and
highly probable that 75 per cent., of the patients were
alive and well three years after operation. Indeed,
some experienced surgeons, such as the late Professor
Halsted, have thought that the percentage of cured
patients might, in these circumstances, be stated to
reach 75 per cent. In the special circumstances of
operation at the most favourable—that is, the earliest
—moment after recognition of a lump in the breast,
there is an average prolongation of life amounting to
many years. We have advisedly refrained from adopting
the word ' cure,' and have only spoken of the
prolongation of life. It is, however, certain that
cure, in the widest popular sense of the word, has