Cusp geometry and the cobordism invariance of the index

The cobordism invariance of the index on closed manifolds is reproved using the calculus of cusp pseudodifferential operators on a manifold with boundary. More generally, on a compact manifold with corners, the existence of a symmetric cusp differential operator of order 1 and of Dirac type near the boundary implies that the sum of the indices of the induced operators on the hyperfaces is null.