"The likelihood of treatment (of any one patient) increases with the length of time since the origin of the disease. ...Those cases in which the neoplastic process progresses slowly...are more likely to be transferred to the 'treated' category than to remain in the 'untreated'."

Previous Quote

The most remarkable feature about the magnitude scale was that it worked at all and that it could be extended on a worldwide basis. It was originally envisaged as a rather rough-and-ready procedure by which we could grade earthquakes. We would have been happy if we could have assigned just three categories, large, medium, and small; the point is, we wanted to avoid personal judgments. It actually turned out to be quite a finely tuned scale.

— Charles Francis Richter