The symptoms of cancer of the uterus are hemorrhage, a more or less offensive discharge, and pain.  The quantity of blood may vary from a slight amount which occasionally stains the clothing to a profuse hemorrhage.  In the married, bleeding following coition is always a suggestive symptom.  During the menopause any irregular or profuse bleeding should excite suspicion.  After the cessation of the menopause any bleeding whatsoever, whether slight or profuse, should always be regarded as a danger signal which demands an immediate and thorough local examination.  The same is true of any offensive vaginal discharge.  Pain is frequently so late a symptom that to wait for its appearance means that the favorable time to perform an operation has passed by.  Emaciation is also a symptom of advanced disease.

Cancer is chiefly a disease of the climacteric; when there is a diminished power on the part of the tissues to resist adverse influence.  It affects the debilitated and overworked, but it is also found in the well nourished and in the comparatively young.

Cancer always begins as a local disease, and when it occurs in the uterus, it is easily accessible and eradicable in its earliest stages; that is, if the disease is discovered in its incipiency, an operation will remove all the diseased tissue.  If, on the contrary, the disease is left to nature, the growth spreads out into the surrounding viscera like the roots of a tree in the earth, and the cancer may be literally said to eat into the tissues which it invades.  At the same time the germs of the disease begin to be carried all through the body, and the entire constitution is affected.

Prophylaxis, or the Prevention of Cancer.—­ All pelvic inflammations should be promptly treated, and not allowed to become chronic.  Leucorrhea is a symptom of inflammation, the true cause of which can be determined only by local examination.  Women who have given birth to children—­ and this is more especially necessary as they near the age of forty years—­ should be carefully examined for tears of the neck of the womb.  If these tears are extensive they should be repaired, as it is certain that malignant growths frequently do follow local injuries and traumatisms.

Any irregular or profuse bleeding demands an immediate investigation by means of a local examination.

A stormy, irregular, or delayed menopause should excite in the woman a suspicion of some abnormal condition.

The importance of women being carefully watched by gynecologists at this period of their lives cannot be too emphatically stated, for upon the early recognition of cancer depends the only hope of radical cure of the disease.  It is estimated that at the present time not less than 95 per cent. of all cases of cancer of the uterus come under the observation of the profession at a stage of the disease when all prospect of permanent relief is out of the question.