13 These statistics are obtained from the records of the Board of Health of the city of New York. These records are kept with great care and system.
The organs most frequently affected with primary cancer are the uterus and stomach. In order to determine the relative frequency of cancer in these situations, I have compiled the following table of statistics from various sources:14
| Primary Cancers. | Stomach. | Uterus. | |
| 11,131 | in Vienna | 10 per cent. | 31 per cent. |
| 7,150 | in New York | 25.7 per cent. | 24.2 per cent. |
| 9,118 | in Paris (Tanchou) | 25.2 per cent. | 32.8 per cent. |
| 1,378 | in Paris (Salle) | 31.9 per cent. | 32 per cent. |
| 587 | in Berlin | 35.8 per cent. | 25 per cent. |
| 183 | in Würzburg | 34.9 per cent. | 19 per cent. |
| 1,046 | in Prague | 37.6 per cent. | 33.3 per cent. |
| 889 | in Geneva | 45 per cent. | 15.6 per cent. |
| 31,482 | total | 21.4 per cent. | 29.5 per cent. |
From this table it appears that in some collections of cases the uterus is the most frequent seat of primary cancer, while in other collections the stomach takes the first rank. If the sum-total of all the cases be taken, the conclusion would be that about one-fifth of all primary cancers are seated in the stomach, and somewhat less than one-third in the uterus. Even if allowance be made for the apparently too low percentage of cases of gastric cancer in the large Vienna statistics,15 I should still be inclined to place the uterus first in the list of organs most frequently affected with primary cancer, and to estimate the frequency of gastric cancer compared with that of primary cancer elsewhere as not over 25 per cent.
14 Vienna cases: Gurlt, Arch. f. klin. Chir., Bd. xxv. p. 421—statistical analysis of 16,637 tumors observed in the three large hospitals of Vienna from 1855 to 1878. New York cases: see preceding foot-note. Paris cases: Tanchou, op. cit., and Salle, Étiologie de la Carcinose, Thèse, Paris, 1877, p. 145 et seq.—fatal cases in Paris hospitals, 1861-63. Berlin cases: Lange, Ueber den Magenkrebs, Inaug. Diss., Berlin, 1877—post-mortem material. Würzburg cases: Virchow, loc. cit., and Virchow's Archiv, Bd. 27, p. 430. Prague cases: reference given above—post-mortem material. Geneva cases: D'Espine, loc. cit.
15 That this percentage is too low is apparent from the fact that the number of cases of gastric cancer is only twice that of primary cancer of liver in Gurlt's statistics.
The liability to gastric cancer seems to be the same in both sexes. Of 2214 cases of gastric cancer which I have collected from hospital statistics, and which were nearly all confirmed by autopsy, 1233 were in males and 981 in females.16 This makes the ratio of males to females about 5 to 4. This difference is so slight that no importance can be attached to it, especially in view of the fact that in most hospitals the males are in excess of the females.
16 My statistics regarding sex are obtained from Prager Vierteljahrschr., vols. xvii., l., xciv., xcix., cxiv.; Lange, op. cit.; Katzenellenbogen, Beitr. zur Statistik d. Magencarcinoms, Jena, 1878; Leudet, Bull. de l'Acad., t. 29, p. 564; Gussenbauer and V. Winiwarter, loc. cit.; Lebert, op. cit.; Habershon, Diseases of Abdomen, Philada., 1879; and Ann. d. Städt. Allg. Krankenh. zu München, Bd. i. and ii.
If to these accurate statistics be added collections of cases from heterogeneous sources, including mortuary statistics (Brinton, Louis, D'Espine, Virchow, Gurlt, Welch), there results a total of 5426 cases, with 2843 males and 2583 females, the two sexes being more evenly represented than in the more exact statistics given in the text. In this collection of cases Gussenbauer and V. Winiwarter's cases only up to the year 1855 are included, as the subsequent ones are doubtless in great part included in Gurlt's statistics. According to Brinton, gastric cancer is twice as frequent in males as in females.
The following table gives the age in 2038 cases of gastric cancer obtained from trustworthy sources and arranged according to decades:17