History of cancer

The history of cancer traces how societies have explained, recognized, diagnosed, and treated malignant disease across time. It includes changing medical theories, therapies, and experiences of people with cancer.

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Edwin Smith Papyrus: An ancient Egyptian surgical text whose surviving copy dates to around 1600 BCE and describes tumors of the breast. Its breast-tumor case is among the earliest known written descriptions of cancer.
Surgical pathology: The examination of tissue removed during surgery to diagnose disease and guide treatment. It linked tumor diagnosis to direct examination of excised tissue.
Halsted radical mastectomy: A nineteenth-century operation that removed the breast, underlying muscles, and axillary lymph nodes to treat breast cancer. It epitomized the extensive surgery once used to control tumors locally.
Percivall Pott: An English surgeon who linked chimney sweeps' scrotal cancer to occupational soot exposure in 1775. His observation became an early landmark in identifying an environmental cause of cancer.
Tobacco control: Policies and public-health measures intended to reduce tobacco use and exposure to tobacco smoke. Evidence linking smoking to lung cancer helped drive one of cancer prevention's largest public campaigns.
Hippocrates: An ancient Greek physician traditionally regarded as a founder of Western medicine. His humoral framework shaped early explanations of cancer and supplied the term karkinos.
Rudolf Virchow: A German physician and pathologist who established cellular pathology as a central medical framework. His work helped establish that cancer arises from cells rather than imbalances of bodily fluids.
Radiotherapy: The use of ionizing radiation to damage cancer cells and shrink or control tumors. Radiation became a major treatment after X-rays and radioactivity were discovered.
Marie Curie: A Polish-born physicist and chemist whose research established the study of radioactivity. Radium research enabled early cancer treatments with radiation, while exposing hazards of radioactive materials.
Occupational cancer: Cancer caused or contributed to by exposures encountered at work. Recognition of workplace causes extended cancer history from clinical observation into labor regulation.