...operation is early interference, and in my sanguine hours I have imagined, with Sir Mitchell Banks, what the results would be if all cancers were thoroughly excised when they were no bigger than peas, or, as I would prefer to say, when the disease is in its very early stage. Indeed, I am fairly sure...

...Lancashire and Cheshire Branch of the British Medical Association in 1877. and in it he suggestively asked, 'Have you ever imagined what the results would be...thoroughly excised when they were no bigger than peas?' His next paper was published in 1883, and was read at Worcester and also at the Liverpool Medical Institution...