“…In reply to this, Balme, 16 in a letter to the Lancet, in 1956, suggested, "This difference between us could be due to a statistical freak of chance; a more probable explanation lies in the selection of cases and the method of classification." Further doubts as to the existence of a relationship between group A and carcinoma of the stomach arise from the fact that, while Stocks 17 showed in 1950 that mortality from the disease was greater in the northern than in the southern towns of England, the proportion of group A is, contrary to expectations, considerably higher in the southern than in the northern parts of the country.…”