SummaryMy experience with fulguration of rectal cancers began in 1946. Twenty‐seven patients are reported. These represent only 3.8 per cent of the total number of patients treated.All patients treated were considered to have invasive cancer. Diagnosis was made primarily on the basis of the gross characteristics, such as firmness and fixation to the muscle. According to the pathologist, the diagnosis of “adenocarcinoma” from the biopsy specimen implies invasive carcinoma. None of these cancers was adenocarcinomain situor adenocarcinoma in an adenoma. Tumors of the rectum are not graded in our laboratory. In 11 of the 27 patients the cancers were ulcerating. In 14 “infiltrating” or “invasive” appeared on the laboratory report. Seventeen patients (63.7 per cent) were alive at the end of five years. At the present time, fulguration should be considered as experimental treatment for cancer of the rectum, and should be performed only by those who have had extensive experience.