The Modern Dance of Death by Peyton Rous was originally delivered as the Linacre lecture for the year 1929 at the University of Cambridge. The purpose of the lecture was to discuss the manner in which humankind's relationship to physical ailments and the attendant risks of death had altered in the four hundred years since Thomas Linacre's time. As Rous saw it, 'From the moment that the body becomes a going concern it must fight for its integrity. Its Dance with Death begins long before birth and never ceases throughout the lengthening period of what we call health. Everything coming in contact with it shapes its destiny.'