THERE are three reasons this evening for my great pleasure and enthusiasm: Dr. Carman was my personal friend and colleague for many years, Roentgen was an idol of my boyhood, and cancer of the stomach has been one of the main subjects of my scientific and clinical investigation for more than thirty years. When I was a second-year medical student at Johns Hopkins University Dr. Carman joined my class as a graduate student; our work tables in pathology and bacteriology were side by side. From 1902 unti11912, when he became associated with our clinic, I lost intimate touch with him but it was during that period that he was building the foundations upon which his later fame rests. It was then that he began his contributions to roentgenologic literature by reporting his studies of pulmonary tuberculosis, foreign bodies of the eye, orbit, and other regions of the body. To these studies were added some contributions to our roentgenologic knowledge of osteo-arthropathies and thoracic aneurysms. It was not until 1913 that he published his first articles on gastric roentgenology. These followed soon after the observations of Groedel (1912) and Forssell (1913) upon gastric structure and motility. It was also after Holzknecht (1911) and Haudek (1912) reported their observations. From 1912 to the time of Dr. Carman's death in 1926, he and I made daily comparative studies of his roentgenologic observations and my studies of resected gastric and duodenal lesions. The second reason for my pleasure this evening rests in my experience as one of the first x-ray observers in the world. This may seem strange to you who know that I am not a roentgenologist. In 1896, just a few weeks after Roentgen made his discovery in 1895, I had the privilege of repeating his experiments, being then a very young student playing with Crookes' tubes in one of the best equipped laboratories of physics in this country. Knowing that I was later to study medicine and having some knowledge of anatomy, I appreciated the possibilities of these rays for medical diagnosis. Still maintaining a suspicion of its future value and being interested in gastric cancer, I went to Europe to see Holzknecht and Haudek in 1913. It was on this trip that I first had the opportunity of seeing, hearing, and meeting Roentgen who had been one of my idols since I was fifteen years of age. You may well appreciate how I feel in paying tribute to my good friend and co-worker, Russell Carman, and Professor Roentgen, an idol of my youth. Naturally, the third reason lies in my years of interest in gastric cancer. The story of our present knowledge is a long one. It has evolved in stages, each dependent upon a new opportunity to study this subject. If historical records be correct, it began with the observations of Morgagni (1761), and continued with those of Baillie (1793), Abercrombie (1824), von Rokitansky (1842), Hauser (1883), and Welch (1885). All of these observers dealt with autopsy material which reveals only the final stages of disease. I believe it is fair to state that the best anatomical study of postmortem material during those early years was that of Hauser (1883) and the best statistical study was made by Welch in 188.5. I suspect that the autopsy room will never reveal more about gastric cancer, its origin, its histogenesis, and relative frequency than those two observers saw over half a century ago. Postmortem material does not lend itself to cytological study and early cancers rarely, if ever, are seen at autopsy. When they are seen immediate ante mortem and postmortem changes have altered