34 The hospital staff voted: Robert Cooke, Dr. Folkman's War: Angiogenesis and the Struggle to Defeat Cancer (New York: Random House, 2001), 113.
34 "tucked in the farthest recesses": Joseph E. Murray, Surgery of the Soul: Reflections on a Curious Career (Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History Publications, 2001), 127.
34 "let them die in peace": Robert D. Mercer, "The Team," in "Chronicle," Medical and Pediatric Oncology 33 (1999): 405-10.
34 "By that time, the only chemical": Thomas Farber, interview with author.
35 His small staff was housed: Taylor, Pioneers in Pediatric Oncology, 88.
35 Farber's assistants sharpened their own: Mercer, "The Team."
35 Two boys treated with aminopterin: Farber, "Temporary Remissions in Acute Leukemia," 787-93.
35 Another child, a two-and-a-half-year-old: Ibid.
35 By April 1948, there was just enough data: Ibid
36 "with skepticism, disbelief, and outrage": Denis R. Miller, "A Tribute to Sidney Farber--the Father of Modern Chemotherapy," British Journal of Haematology 134 (2006): 20-26.
36 "The bone marrow looked so normal": Mercer, "The Team."
A Private Plague
37 We reveal ourselves: Stephen Jay Gould, Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1996), 7.
37 Thus, for 3,000 years and more: "Cancer: The Great Darkness," Fortune, May 1937.
37 Now it is cancer's turn: Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors (New York: Picador, 1990), 5.
38 John Keats involuting silently: "John Keats," Annals of Medical History 2, no. 5 (1930): 530.
38 "Death and disease are often beautiful": Sontag, Illness as Metaphor, 20.
38 "in every possible sense, a nonconformist": Sherwin Nuland, How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), 202.
39 Edwin Smith papyrus: James Henry Breasted, The Edwin Smith Papyrus: Some Preliminary Observations (Paris: Librairie Ancienne Honore Champion, Edward Champion, 1922); also available online at http://www.touregypt.net/edwinsmithsurgical.htm (accessed November 8, 2009).
40 Imhotep case forty-five: Breasted, Edwin Smith Papyrus. Also see F. S. Boulos. "Oncology in Egyptian Papyri," in Paleo-oncology: The Antiquity of Cancer, 5th ed., ed. Spyros Retsas (London: Farrand Press, 1986), 36; and Edward Lewison, Breast Cancer and Its Diagnosis and Treatment (Baltimore: Williams and Walkins, 1955), 3.
41 A furious febrile plague: Siro I. Trevisanato, "Did an Epidemic of Tularemia in Ancient Egypt Affect the Course of World History?" Medical Hypotheses 63, no. 5 (2004): 905-10.
41 leaving its telltale pockmarks: Sergio Donadoni, ed., The Egyptians (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 292.
41 Tuberculosis rose and ebbed: Reddy D. V. Subba, "Tuberculosis in Ancient India," Bulletin of the Institute of Medicine (Hyderabad) 2 (1972): 156-61.
41 In his sprawling Histories: Herodotus, The Histories (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pt. VIII.
43 At the Chiribaya site: Arthur Aufderheide, The Scientific Study of Mummies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 117; Arthur Aufderheide, interview with author, March 2009. Also see Cambridge Encyclopedia of Paleopathology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 300
43 In 1914, a team: J. L. Miller, "Some Diseases of Ancient Man," Annals of Medical History 1 (1929): 394-402.
43 Louis Leakey, the archaeologist: Mel Greaves, Cancer: The Evolutionary Legacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
44 "The early history of cancer": Aufderheide, interview with author, 2009.
44 A leprosy-like illness: Boris S. Ostrer, "Leprosy: Medical Views of Leviticus Rabba," Early Science and Medicine 7, no. 2 (2002): 138-54.
44 The risk of breast cancer: See, for instance, "Risk Factors You Can't Control," Breastcancer.org, www.breastcancer.org/risk/everyone/cant_control.jsp (accessed January 4, 2010). Also see Report No. 1743, International Cancer Research Act, 79th Cong., 2nd Sess.; and "U.S. Science Wars against an Unknown Enemy: Cancer," Life, March 1, 1937.
45 "captain of the men of death": William Osler and Thomas McCrae, The Principles and Practice of Medicine: Designed for the Use of Practitioners and Students of Medicine, 9th ed. (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1921), 156.
45 Cancer still lagged: Report No. 1743, International Cancer Research Act.
45 By the early 1940s, cancer: Life, March 1, 1937, 11.
45 life expectancy among Americans: Shrestha et al., "Life Expectancy in the United States," CRS Report for Congress, 2006. Also see Lewison, Breast Cancer.
Onkos
46 Black bile without boiling: Jeremiah Reedy, "Galen on Cancer and Related Diseases," Clio Medica 10, no. 3 (1975): 227.
46 We have learned nothing: Francis Carter Wood, "Surgery Is Sole Cure for Bad Varieties of Cancer," New York Times, April 19, 1914.
46 It's bad bile: Mel Greaves, Cancer: The Evolutionary Legacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 5.
46 In some ways disease: Charles E. Rosenberg, "Disease in History: Frames and Framers," Milbank Quarterly 67 (1989) (suppl. 1, Framing Disease: The Creation and Negotiation of Explanatory Schemes): 1-2.
47 Later writers, both doctors and patients: See, for instance, Henry E. Sigerist, "The Historical Development of the Pathology and Therapy of Cancer," Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 8, no. 11 (1932): 642-53; James A. Tobey, Cancer: What Everyone Should Know about It (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1932).
48 "Of blacke cholor": Claudius Galen, Methodus Medendi, with a Brief Declaration of the Worthie Art of Medicine, the Office of a Chirgion, and an Epitome of the Third Booke of Galen, of Naturall Faculties, trans. T. Gale (London: Thomas East, 1586), 180-82.
49 "best left untreated": Emile Littre's translation of the Hippocratic oath, Oeuvres completes d'Hippocrate, bk. VI, aphorism 38. Von Boenninghausen, Homeopathic Recorder, vol. 58, nos. 10, 11, 12 (1943). Also see http://classics.mit.edu/Hippocrates/aphorisms.6.vi.html and http://julianwinston.com/archives/periodicals/vb_aphorisms6.php.
49 "Do not be led away and offer": George Parker, The Early History of Surgery in Great Britain: Its Organization and Development (London: Black, 1920), 44.
49 "Those who pretend": Joseph-Francois Malgaigne, Surgery and Ambroise Pare (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965), 73.
49 Ambroise Pare described charring tumors: See, for instance, "The History of Hemostasis," Annals of Medical History 1 (1): 137; Malgaigne, Surgery and Ambroise Pare, 73, 181.
49 "Many females can stand the operation": See Lorenz Heister, "Van de Kanker der boorsten," in H. T. Ulhoorn, ed., Heelkundige onderwijzingen (Amsterdam, 1718), 2: 845-856; also quoted in James S. Olson, Bathsheba's Breast: Women, Cancer, and History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 50.
50 The apothecary: See, for instance, William Seaman Bainbridge, The Cancer Problem (New York: Macmillan Company, 1914).
Vanishing Humors
51 Rack't carcasses: John Donne, "Love's Exchange," Poems of John Donne, vol. 1, ed. E. K. Chambers (London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1896), 35-36.
51 "Aside from the eight muscles": Andreas Vesalius, The Fabric of the Human Body [De Fabrica Humani Corporis], trans. W. P. Hotchkiss, preface. See Sourcebook of Medical History (Mineola, NY: Dover, 1960), 134; and The Illustrations from the Works of Andreas Vesalius of Brussels (Mineola, NY: Dover, 1950), 11-13.
51 He needed his own specimens: Charles Donald O'Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 1514-1564 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964).
52 "In the course of explaining the opinion": "Andreas Vesalius of Brussels Sends Greetings to His Master and Patron, the Most Eminent and Illustrious Doctor Narcissus Parthenopeus, First Physician to His Imperial Majesty," The Illustrations from the Works of Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, with annotations and translations by J. B. de C. M. Saunders and Charles D. O'Malley (Cleveland, OH: World Publishing Company, 1950), 233.
53 "as large as an orange": Ma
tthew Baillie, The Morbid Anatomy of Some of the Most Important Parts of the Human Body, 2nd American ed. (Walpole, NH: 1808), 54.
53 "a fungous appearance": Ibid., 93.
53 "a foul deep ulcer": Ibid., 209.
"Remote sympathy"
55 In treating of cancer: Samuel Cooper, A Dictionary of Practical Surgery vol. 1 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1836), 49.
55 "If a tumor is not only movable": John Hunter, Lectures on the Principles of Surgery (Philadelphia: Haswell, Barrington, and Haswell, 1839).
56 "I did not experience pain": See a history of ether at http://www.anesthesia-nursing.com/ether.html (accessed January 5, 2010).
56 "It must be some subtle principle": M. Percy, "On the Dangers of Dissection," New Journal of Medicine and Surgery, and Collateral Branches of Science 8, no. 2 (1819): 192-96.
57 It "occurred to me": Joseph Lister, "On the Antiseptic Principle in the Practice of Surgery," British Medical Journal 2, no. 351 (1867): 246.
57 In August 1867, a thirteen-year-old: Ibid., 247.
58 In 1869, Lister removed a breast tumor: James S. Olson, Bathsheba's Breast (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 67.
58 Lister performed an extensive amputation: Edward Lewison, Breast Cancer and Its Diagnosis and Treatment (Baltimore: Williams and Walkins, 1955), 17.
58 "The course so far is already": Harold Ellis, A History of Surgery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 104.
59 Billroth's gastrectomy: See Theodor Billroth, Offenes schreiben an Herrn Dr. L. Wittelshofer, Wien Med Wschr (1881), 31: 161-65; also see Owen Wangensteen and Sarah Wangensteen, The Rise of Surgery (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1978), 149.
59 Surgeons returned to the operating table: Owen Pritchard, "Notes and Remarks on Upwards of Forty Operations for Cancer with Escharotics," Lancet 136, no. 3504 (1890): 864.
A Radical Idea
60 The professor who blesses the occasion: Mary Lou McCarthy McDonough, Poet Physicians: An Anthology of Medical Poetry Written by Physicians (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1945).
60 It is over: John Brown, Rab and His Friends (Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1885), 20.
60 William Stewart Halsted: W. G. MacCallum, William Stewart Halsted, Surgeon (Kessinger Publishing, 2008), 106. Also see Michael Osborne, "William Stewart Halsted: His Life and Contributions to Surgery"; and S. J. Crowe, Halsted of Johns Hopkins: The Man and His Men (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas).
61 "I opened a large orifice": W. H. Witt, "The Progress of Internal Medicine since 1830," in The Centennial History of the Tennessee State Medical Association, 1830-1930, ed. Philip M. Hammer (Nashville: Tennessee State Medical Association, 1930), 265.
61 "Small bleedings give temporary relief": Walter Hayle Walshe, A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Lungs including the Principles of Physical Diagnosis, 3rd ed. (Philadelphia: Blanchard and Lea, 1860), 416.
61 "pus-pails": Lois N. Magner, A History of Medicine (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1992), 296.
62 In October 1877, leaving behind: MacCallum, William Stewart Halsted. Also see D. W. Cathell, The Physician Himself (1905), 2.
62 merely an "audacious step" away: Karel B. Absolon, The Surgeon's Surgeon: Theodor Billroth: 1829-1894, (Kansas: Coronado Press, 1979).
62 In 1882, he removed an infected gallbladder: John L. Cameron, "William Stewart Halsted: Our Surgical Heritage," Annals of Surgery 225, no. 5 (1996): 445-58.
63 "clearer and clearer, with no sense of fatigue": Donald Fleming, William H. Welch and the Rise of Modern Medicine (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987).
63 "cold as stone and most unlivable": Harvey Cushing, letter to his mother, 1898, Harvey Cushing papers at Yale University.
64 "Mammary cancer requires": Charles H. Moore, "On the Influence of Inadequate Operations on the Theory of Cancer," Medico-Chirurgical Transactions 50, no. 245 (1867): 277.
64 "mistaken kindness": Edward Lewison. Breast Cancer and Its Diagnosis and Treatment (Baltimore: Williams and Walkins, 1955), 16.
65 "We clean out or strip": William S. Halsted, "A Clinical and Histological Study of Certain Adenocarcinomata of the Breast: And a Brief Consideration of the Supraclavicular Operation and of the Results of Operations for Cancer of the Breast from 1889 to 1898 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital," Annals of Surgery 28: 557-76.
65 At Hopkins, Halsted's diligent students: W. M. Barclay, "Progress of the Medical Sciences: Surgery," Bristol Medical-Chirurgical Journal 17, no. 1 (1899): 334-36.
65 "It is likely": Halsted, "Clinical and Histological Study."
65 In Europe, one surgeon evacuated three ribs: See Westerman, "Thoraxexcisie bij recidief can carcinoma mammae," Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd (1910): 1686.
65 "surgical elephantiasis," "Good use of arm," "Married, Four Children": from William Stewart Halsted, Surgical Papers (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1924), 2:17, 22, 24.
66 "performance of an artist": Matas, "William Stewart Halsted, an appreciation," Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital 36, no. 2 (1925).
66 "I find myself inclined": Halsted, "Clinical and Histological Study of Certain Adenocarcinomata of the Breast," Annals of Surgery 28: 560.
67 "cancer storehouse": Ibid., 557.
67 On April 19, 1898: Ibid., 557-76.
68 A surgeon should "operate on the neck": Ibid., 572.
68 Halsted's 1907 report to the American Surgical Association: William Stewart Halsted, "The Results of Radical Operations for the Cure of Carcinoma of the Breast," Annals of Surgery 46, no. 1 (1907): 1-19.
68 "If the disease was so advanced": "A Vote for Partial Mastectomy: Radical Surgery Is Not the Best Treatment for Breast Cancer, He Says," Chicago Tribune, October 2, 1973.
68 "But even without the proof": Halsted, "Results of Radical Operations," 7. Also see Halsted, "The Results of Radical Operations for the Cure of Cancer of the Breast," Transactions of the American Surgical Association 25: 66.
68 "It is especially true of mammary cancer": Ibid., 61.
70 "With no protest from any other quarter": Ellen Leopold, A Darker Ribbon: Breast Cancer, Women, and Their Doctors in the Twentieth Century (Boston: Beacon Press, 1999), 88.
70 "Undoubtedly, if operated upon properly": Transactions of the American Surgical Association 49.
70 "the more radical the better": "Breast Cancer, New Choices," Washington Post, December 22, 1974.
70 Alexander Brunschwig devised an operation: Alexander Brunschwig and Virginia K. Pierce, "Partial and Complete Pelvic Exenteration: A Progress Report Based upon the First 100 Operations," Cancer 3 (1950): 927-74; Alexander Brunschwig, "Complete Excision of Pelvic Viscera for Advanced Carcinoma: A One-Stage Abdominoperineal Operation with End Colostomy and Bilateral Ureteral Implantation into the Colon above the Colostomy," Cancer 1 (1948): 177-83.
70 Pack the Knife: From George T. Pack's papers, quoted in Barron Lerner, The Breast Cancer Wars: Hope, Fear, and the Pursuit of a Cure in Twentieth-Century America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 73.
70 "Even in its widest sense": Stanford Cade, Radium Treatment of Cancer (New York: William Wood, 1929), 1.
70 "There is an old Arabian proverb": Urban Maes, "The Tragedy of Gastric Carcinoma: A Study of 200 Surgical Cases," Annals of Surgery 98, no. 4 (1933): 629.
71 "I know you didn't know anything": Hugh H. Young, Hugh Young: A Surgeon's Autobiography (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1940), 76.
71 In 1904, with Halsted as his assistant: Bertram M. Bernheim, The Story of the Johns Hopkins (Surrey: World's Work, 1949); A. McGehee Harvey et al., A Model of Its Kind, vol. 1, A Centennial History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989); Leonard Murphy, The History of Urology (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1972), 132.
71 "the slow separation of brain from tumor": Harvey Cushing, "Original Memoirs: The Control of Bleeding in Operations for Brain Tumors. With the Description of Silver 'Clips' for the Occlusion of Vessels Inaccessible to the
Ligature," Annals of Surgery 49, no. 1 (1911): 14-15.
72 In 1933, at the Barnes hospital: Evarts G. Graham, "The First Total Pneumonectomy," Texas Cancer Bulletin 2 (1949): 2-4.
72 A surgical procedure: Alton Ochsner and M. DeBakey, "Primary Pulmonary Malignancy: Treatment by Total Pneumonectomy--Analysis of 79 Collected Cases and Presentation of 7 Personal Cases," Surgery, Gynecology, and Obstetrics 68 (1939): 435-51.
The Hard Tube and the Weak Light
73 We have found in [X-rays]: "X-ray in Cancer Cure," Los Angeles Times, April 6, 1902.
73 By way of illustration: "Last Judgment," Washington Post, August 26, 1945.
73 Rontgen's discovery of X-rays: Wilhelm C. Rontgen, "On a New Kind of Rays," Nature 53, no. 1369 (1896): 274-76; John Maddox, "The Sensational Discovery of X-rays," Nature 375 (1995): 183.
75 One man who gave "magical" demonstrations: Robert William Reid, Marie Curie (New York: Collins, 1974), 122.
75 In 1896, barely a year after Rontgen: Emil H. Grubbe, "Priority in Therapeutic Use of X-rays," Radiology 21 (1933): 156-62; Emil H. Grubbe, X-ray Treatment: Its Origin, Birth and Early History (St. Paul: Bruce Publishing, 1949).
76 "I believe this treatment is an absolute cure": "X-rays Used as a Remedy for Cancer," New York Times, November 2, 1901.
76 advertised for sale to laypeople: "Mining: Surplus of Radium," Time, May 24, 1943.
76 "millions of tiny bullets of energy": Oscar Carl Simonton, Stephanie Simonton, and James Creighton, Getting Well Again: A Step-by-Step, Self-Help Guide to Overcoming Cancer for Patients and Their Families (Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher, 1978), 7.
76 "The patient is put on a stretcher": "Medicine: Advancing Radiotherapy," Time, October 6, 1961.
77 One woman with a brain tumor: "Atomic Medicine: The Great Search for Cures on the New Frontier," Time, April 7, 1952.
77 Undark and the "Radium girls": Claudia Clark, Radium Girls: Women and Industrial Health Reform, 1910-1935 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997); Ross Mullner, Deadly Glow: The Radium Dial Worker Tragedy (Washington, DC: American Public Health Association, 1999).
Siddhartha Mukherjee - The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer Page 58
