“And strangely visited people—all swollen and ulcerous, the very despair of surgery, he cures.” So said Shakespeare of Lady Macbeth's doctor. But in Hamlet he also uttered a prayer which we as radiotherapists must have prayed many a time—“Oh that this too solid flesh would melt”. When I see in my mind' eye and remember that tragic procession of women, young, middle aged and elderly, whom I have seen during the past 20 years— they are indeed the very despair of surgery. But I preferred not to use this for a title for this address, for it might have implied more than I have in mind. Shakespeare has some other words, words which Sir Ernest Kennaway called to my attention and which, he points out, the poet with a subtle purpose, perhaps, puts into the mouth of a clown. They are in Twelfth Night; the clown looking up at the darkened house mutters under his breath that it is dark—all dark—but “the only darkness is ignorance”. I am conscious that this is an address and not reading a paper or a lecture. I have ch...