IN the treatment of carcinoma of the skin I feel that cauterization of the lesions alone is not the treatment of choice. Unless it is thoroughly done, the treatment is inaccurate and often ineffectual, and if carried to a depth sufficient to destroy the disease unsightly scarring results. Healing is delayed; the period of dressings may be long, and there is no certainty that the disease has been completely eliminated as there can be no study of sections of the tissue destroyed. The two main methods of treatment of carcinoma of the skin are irradiation and surgical excision. In the earlier smaller lesions there are certain locations where irradiation is preferable to surgical treatment because of the difficulty of excising the lesion adequately without causing deformity or without complicated plastic procedures. A sample of such a location is the tip of the nose. There are other locations, such as