A brief history of cancer
Ever since complex life evolved, it has been susceptible to cancer. Plants can get cancer. Dinosaurs probably suffered from it. It has been around for thousands and thousands of years.
The oldest description of cancer in humans was found in an Egyptian papyrus written between 3000-1500 BC. It referred to tumours of the breast. In Greece in about 400 BC Hippocrates, the "Father of Medicine", is credited with being the first to recognise the difference between benign and malignant tumours.
Progress on understanding and treating cancer was slow. It was not until the 18th century in Reims, France, that the first cancer hospital was founded, although this was in the mistaken belief that cancer was a contagious disease. The French gynaecologist Recamier described the invasion of the bloodstream by cancer cells in 1839, coining the word metastasis (cancer spread).
In 1895, Röntgen discovered the x-ray, and this radiation is still used for both cancer diagnosis and cancer treatment (radiotherapy).
A huge and momentous breakthrough in our understanding of cell biology came in 1953, when Francis Crick and James Watson unravelled the structure of DNA. Since then we have begun to study and understand the causes of cancer at a molecular level, and to devise new treatments based on this knowledge.
The last fifty years have seen an explosion in our understanding of this most fundamental of diseases, and new discoveries are occurring on an almost weekly basis.
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