The principle of monobloc excision and dissection in continuity for primary cancers metastasizing into regionally adjacent lymph nodes has found general acceptance. It is employed for cancers of the oral group, e.g., lip, tongue, floor of mouth, inferior alveolus, for thyroid cancer, for certain cancers of the vulva and penis, for cancers of the uterine cervix and cancers of the rectum for which pelvic lymph node dissection is feasible. The first standardized application of this principle followed the independent descriptions of the so-called radical mastectomy by Halsted and Willy Meyer in 1894. The operation embodies the sacrifice of the viscus containing the primary cancer or an adequate removal of the tissue, e.g., skin, which contains it, together with a complete dissection of the adjacent and accessible regional lymph nodes into which metastases have occurred or might occur, and, which is equally important, the wide pathway of intervening tissues with the