Editing Cancer (section)

== History ==
{{Main|History of cancer}}
[[File:Clara Jacobi-Tumor.jpg|thumb|left|[[Engraving]] with two views of a Dutch woman who had a tumor removed from her neck in 1689]]

Cancer has existed for all of human history.<ref name=Hist1/> The earliest written record regarding cancer is from {{circa|1600 BC}} in the Egyptian [[Edwin Smith Papyrus]] and describes breast cancer.<ref name=Hist1>{{cite journal |vauthors=Hajdu SI |s2cid=39667103 |title=A note from history: landmarks in history of cancer, part 1 |journal=Cancer |volume=117 |issue=5 |pages=1097–102 |date=March 2011 |pmid=20960499 |doi=10.1002/cncr.25553|doi-access=free }}</ref> [[Hippocrates]] ({{circa|460 BC|370 BC}}) described several kinds of cancer, referring to them with the [[Greek language|Greek]] word [[wikt:καρκίνος#Ancient Greek|καρκίνος]] ''karkinos'' (crab or [[crayfish]]).<ref name=Hist1/> This name comes from the appearance of the cut surface of a solid malignant tumor, with "the veins stretched on all sides as the animal the crab has its feet, whence it derives its name".<ref>Paul of Aegina, 7th century AD, quoted in {{cite web | vauthors = Moss RW |title=Galen on Cancer |url=http://www.cancerdecisions.com/speeches/galen1989.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716111312/http://www.cancerdecisions.com/speeches/galen1989.html |archive-date=16 July 2011 |publisher=CancerDecisions |year=2004 }} Referenced from Michael Shimkin, Contrary to Nature, Washington, DC: Superintendent of Document, DHEW Publication No. (NIH) 79–720, p. 35.</ref> [[Galen]] stated that "cancer of the breast is so called because of the fancied resemblance to a crab given by the lateral prolongations of the tumor and the adjacent distended veins".<ref name="Majno2004">{{cite book | vauthors = Majno G, Joris I |title=Cells, Tissues, and Disease: Principles of General Pathology: Principles of General Pathology |url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=8yAf6U7njlcC |page=738}}|access-date=11 September 2013|date=12 August 2004|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-974892-1}}</ref>{{rp|738}} [[Aulus Cornelius Celsus|Celsus]] ({{circa|25 BC}} – 50 AD) translated ''karkinos'' into the [[Latin]] ''cancer'', also meaning crab and recommended surgery as treatment.<ref name=Hist1/> [[Galen]] (2nd century AD) disagreed with the use of surgery and recommended [[purgatives]] instead.<ref name=Hist1/> These recommendations largely stood for 1000 years.<ref name=Hist1/>

In the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, it became acceptable for doctors to [[dissection|dissect bodies]] to discover the cause of death.<ref name=Hist2>{{cite journal |vauthors=Hajdu SI |s2cid=28148111 |title=A note from history: landmarks in history of cancer, part 2 |journal=Cancer |volume=117 |issue=12 |pages=2811–20 |date=June 2011 |pmid=21656759 |doi=10.1002/cncr.25825|doi-access=free }}</ref> The German professor [[Wilhelm Fabry]] believed that breast cancer was caused by a milk clot in a mammary duct. The Dutch professor [[Francois de la Boe Sylvius]], a follower of [[René Descartes|Descartes]], believed that all disease was the outcome of chemical processes and that acidic [[lymph]] fluid was the cause of cancer. His contemporary [[Nicolaes Tulp]] believed that cancer was a poison that slowly spreads and concluded that it was [[infectious disease|contagious]].<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Yalom M |title=A history of the breast |year=1998 |publisher=Ballantine Books |location=New York |isbn=978-0-679-43459-7 |url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=FFX1U3KUjPsC}}|edition=1}}</ref>

The physician John Hill described [[tobacco sniffing]] as the cause of nose cancer in 1761.<ref name=Hist2/> This was followed by the report in 1775 by British surgeon [[Percivall Pott]] that [[chimney sweeps' carcinoma]], a cancer of the [[scrotum]], was a common disease among [[chimney sweep]]s.<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Hajdu SI |title=A note from history: landmarks in history of cancer, part 3 |journal=Cancer |volume=118 |issue=4 |pages=1155–68 |date=February 2012 |pmid=21751192 |doi=10.1002/cncr.26320|s2cid=38892895 |doi-access=free }}</ref> With the widespread use of the microscope in the 18th century, it was discovered that the 'cancer poison' spread from the primary tumor through the lymph nodes to other sites ("[[metastasis]]"). This view of the disease was first formulated by the English surgeon [[Campbell De Morgan]] between 1871 and 1874.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Grange JM, Stanford JL, Stanford CA | title = Campbell De Morgan's 'Observations on cancer', and their relevance today | journal = Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine | volume = 95 | issue = 6 | pages = 296–299 | date = June 2002 | pmid = 12042378 | pmc = 1279913 | doi =  10.1177/014107680209500609 }}</ref>