First May I be allowed to express (to you, Mr. President, and to this distinguished gathering) my sincere appreciation of the honour of your invitation, and of the privilege it gives me of opening the discussion upon our subject to-day. I thank you for your invitation, to which I accede with great pleasure, and I assure you that I deeply esteem the honour you have shown me. Your invitation has given me occasion to pay my first visit to England, and I do so with a keen sense of pleasure at the prospect of becoming acquainted with this country, which is admired by myself and all my fellow-countrymen, as standing for all that is best in human culture. The subject chosen by you as the principal theme for diagnostic discussion is worthy of our closest attention. Carcinoma of the stomach is still a veritable scourge of mankind. Forty per cent of all cancer deaths are due to it, and cancer itself ranks now second only to cardiovascular diseases in the statistics of the causes of death. In cancer of the stomach e...