g to cross out, from the crossed latticed
lines drawn across a legal document to annul it, hence to delete or
destroy.

CANCELLI (plural of Lat. _cancellus_, dim. of _cancer_, a crossing bar),
in architecture, the term given to barriers which correspond to the
modern balustrade or railing, especially the screen dividing the body of
a church from the part occupied by the ministers; hence "chancel"
(q.v.). By the Romans _cancelli_ were similarly employed to divide off
portions of the courts of law (cf. the English "bar").

CANCER, LUIS (d. 1549), Spanish missionary to Central America, was born
at Barbastro near Saragossa. After working for some time in Dominica and
Haiti, he crossed to the mainland, where he had great success in
pacifying the Indians whom more violent methods had failed to subdue. He
upheld the cause of the natives at an ecclesiastical assembly held in
Mexico in 1546, and three years later, on the 26th of June, met his
death at their hands on the west coast of Florida.

CANCER ("THE CRAB"), in astronomy, the fourth sign of the zodiac,
denoted by the symbol [Crab symbol]. Its name may be possibly derived
from the fact that when the sun arrives at this part of the ecliptic it
apparently retraces its path, resembling in some manner the sidelong
motion of a crab. It is also a constellation, mentioned by Eudoxus (4th
century B.C.) and Aratus (3rd century B.C.); Ptolemy catalogued 13 stars
in it, Tycho Brahe 15 and Hevelius 29. Its most interesting objects are:
a large loose cluster of stars, known as _Praesepe_ or the Beehive,
visible as a nebulous patch to the naked eye, and [zeta] _Cancri_, a
remarkable multiple star, composed of two stars, of magnitudes 5 and
5.7, revolving about each other in 60 years, and a third star of
magnitude 5.5 which revolves about these two in an opposite direction in
a period of 17-1/2 years; from irregularities in the motion of this star,
it is supposed to be a satellite of an invisible body which itself
revolves about the two stars previously mentioned, in a period of 600 to
700 years.

CANCER, or CARCINOMA (from Lat. _cancer_, Gr. _[Greek: karkiuoma]_, an
eating ulcer), the name given to a class of morbid growths or tumours
which occur in man, and also in most or all vertebrate animals. The term
"malignant disease" is commonly used as synonymous with "cancer." For
the general pathology, &c., of tumours see TUMOUR.

Cancer exists in various forms, w